ALEXANDER  GOLDSTEIN 


AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM: 


SPEECHES,    LETTERS,    AND   OTHER  PAPERS 
WHICH   ILLUSTRATE 


THE    FOUNDATION,  .  . 

THE    DEVELOPMENT, 

THE   PRESERVATION 


United  States  of  America. 


COMPILED    BY 


SELIM    H.    PEABODY,    Pn.D, 


NEW  YORK  : 

AMERICAN    BOOK    EXCHANQE, 

TRIBUNE  BUILDING. 

1880. 


COPYRIGHT,  iggo.  BY  THK 
AMERICAN  BOOK   EXCHANGE. 


f 
Vs- 


PREFACE. 


TTIE  design  of  this  compilation  is  to  present  a  sheaf  of  ripened  grain' 
grown  on  American  soi);  to  include  the  noblest  specimens  of  the 
learning,  and  eloquence,  and  wisdom,  and  patriotism  of  those  who,  by 
the  judgment  of  their  own  time  and  the  concurrent  verdict  of  posterity 
have  been  recognized  as  the  foremost  men  and  the  clearest  thinkers  in 
the  growing  state.  Such  sheaves  have  been  garnered  before.  But  the 
later  events,  hardly  yet  rounded  into  completeness,  furnish  to  the 
reaper  a  broader  field,  upturned  by  the  tillage  of  war,  whence  has 
sprung  a  new  harvest  of  glorious  and  abounding  grain  not  less  precious 
than  that  oft  reaped  before.  This  work  has  naturally  classified  itself 
into  three  parts:  the  first  including  papers  which  illustrate  the  formative 
period  of  the  nation's  history — culminating  in  the  Revolution;  the 
second,  those  produced  in  a  time,  not  at  all  of  inaction,  but  of  vigor 
ous  and  healthful  yet  of  peaceful  development;  the  third,  those  poured 
forth  in  hot  and  tumultuous  haste,  blazing  with  patriotic  fire,  when  the 
Rebellion  was  earthquake,  and  tempest,  and  pestilence  in  one.  Fol 
lowing  the  papers  in  the  chronological  order  of  their  arrangement,  one 
may  trace  in  the  first  period  the  progress  of  public  thought;  the  hope 
and  wish  that  wrongs  might  be  righted  within  the  pale-  of  the  colonial 
system;  doubts  of  success  ripening  into  conviction  that  separation  was 
imperative;  lofty  purpose  culminating  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence;  the  period  closing  with  the  glorious  sunset  of  the  great  com 
mander.  Guided  by  no  such  sequence  of  ideas  and  events  in  the 
second  period,  we  simply  include  several  of  its  historic  papers,  match 
less  in  eloquence  and  wisdom.  In  the  third  period,  recognizing  the 
fact  that  the  real  cause  of  strife  was  the  cancer  of  Human  Slavery,  we 
have  arranged,  also  in  the  order  of  time,  papers  which  illustrate  the 
growth  of  public  opinion;  the  enlightenment  of  the  public  conscience' 

773197 


X  FRET  A  CK. 

the  courage  of  those  who  protested  against  wrong,  in  the  teeth  of  bitter 
denunciation;  the  grand  uprising  of  the  nation,  when  War,  full  pano 
plied,  sprang  into  the  arena,  and  the  sword  was  flung  into  the  oscillating 
scales;  the  prudent,  faithful,  godlike  words  of  the  people's  President; 
the  voice  that  cried,  "  Let  the  oppressed  go  free";  the  agony  that  rent 
the  land  when  the  assassin's  bullet  pierced  at  once  the  nation's  head 
and  the  people's  heart;  the  requiems  for  the  martyred  President;  and 
finally,  the  philosophic  reviews  of  the  nation's  life,  completing  the  full 
-measure  of  a  century's  existence.  Beginning,  then,  with  the  first 
papers  of  this  volume,  and  reading  thoughtfully  and  carefully,  in  the 
order  given,  with  such  collaterals  as  time  and  circumstances  may  offer, 
the  reader  as  he  closes  the  book  will  discover  that  he  has  perused  an 
Epitome  of  the  first  century  of  American  History.  And  the  most  im 
pressive  lesson  of  these  pages,  having  its  germs  in  the  very  earliest, 
with  illustrations  and  enforcements  in  every  other,  formulated  an 
hundred  times,  in  terms  the  most  logical,  the  most  authoritative,  the 
most  eloquent,  the  most  impassioned;  emphasized  by  the  thunder  of 
cannon,  and  sanctified  by  the  blood  of  heroes  and  martyrs — is  that 
these  United  States  of  America,  were,  and  are,  and  must  remain,  not 
an  aggregate  of  provinces,  but  One  People — a  Nation. 

S.  H.  P. 
NEW  YORK,  June  i,  iSSo. 


CONTENTS. 


PART  I. 

PAGE 

Protest  of  Boston  against  Taxation. 

SAMUEL  ADAMS 1764          i 

The  Grievances  of  the  American  Colonies. 

STEPHEN  HOPKINS 1764          4 

Causes  of  American  Discontent. 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 1768         16 

Appeal  to  the  Sons  of  Liberty. 

SAMUEL  ADAMS 1769        23 

Letters  from  "  Farmer." — Letter  XII. 

JOHN  DICKINSON 1771        24 

Letter  from  "Candidus." 

SAMUEL  ADAMS.. 1771        29 

Report  on  the  Rights  of  Colonists. 

SAMUEL  ADAMS 1772        32 

Oration  at  Boston. 

JOSEPH  WARREN 1772        37 

Essay  on  the  Constitutional  Power  of  Great  Britain. 

JOHN  DICKINSON 1774        44 

Thoughts  on  Standing  Armies. 

JOSIA-H  QUINCY,  JR 1774         60 

Oration  on  the  Boston  Massacre. 

JOHN  HANCOCK 1774        85 

Vindication  of  the  Colonies. 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 1775        94 

Speech  for  American  Colonies. 

JOHN  WILKES 1775        97 


COX  TENTS. 


Speech  ^n  a  Motion  for  Removing  Troops  from  Boston. 

WILLIAM  PITT,  EARL  OF  CHATHAM 1775       101 

Speech  to  the  Delegates  of  Virginia. 

PATRICK  HENRY 1775       108 

Oration  on  the  Re-interment  of  Warren. 

PEREZ  MORTON 1776       no 

Occupation  of  Dorchester  Heights,  1776. 

EDWARD  EVERETT 1855       114 

The  Declaration  of  Independence. 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON 1776      120 

Predictions  Concerning  the  4th  of  July. 

JOHN  ADAMS •. 1776      124 

Patriotism  a  Virtue. 

JONATHAN  MASON. 1780      125 

Circular  Letter  to  the  Governors. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON 1783      154 

Farewell  to  the  Army. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON 1783      142 

Resignation  of  Commission. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON 1 783       146 

The  Defects  of  the  Confederation. 

BENJAMIN  RUSH 1787      147 

Eulogy  on  Adams  and  Jefferson. 

DANIEL  WEBSTZR 1826      150 


PART    II. 

Inaugural  Address. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON 1789      181 

Farewell  Address. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON 1797      184 

On  the  Embargo. 

JOSIAH  QUINCY,  JR 1808       190 

Maritime  Protection. 

JOSIAH  QUINCY,  JR 1812      203 

Laying  the  Corner  Stone  of  the  Bunker  Hill  Monument. 

DANIEL  WEBSTER ^25      208 


CONTENTS. 


Reply  to  Hayne. 

DANIEL  WEBSTER 1830      223 

Second  Centennial  of  Boston. 

JOSIAH  QUINCY,  JR 1830       280 

Proclamation  against  Nullification. 

ANDREW  JACKSON 1832      283 

Lafayette. 

JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS 1834      300 

The  Jubilee  of  the  Constitution. 

JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS... 1839      311 

Completion  of  Bunker  Hill  Monument. 

DANIEL  WEBSTER 1843       322 

V--The  True  Grandeur  of  Nations. 

CHARLES  SUMNER 1845      340 

Eulogy  on  Webster. 

RUFUS  CHOATE 18^3      395 


PART   III. 

The  Duty  of  the  Free  States. 

WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING •  •  ^«  •  •  •  1842      449 

The  Lessons  of  Independence  Day. 

WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 1842      475 

The  Consequences  of  Secession. 

HENRY  CLAY , 1850      483 

Protest  against  Slavery  in  Nebraska  and  Kansas. 

CHARLES  SUMNER 1854      490 

Debate  with  Douglas.  , 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 1858      494 

Burial  of  John  Brown. 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS 1859      504 

At  Independence  Hall. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 1861       507 

First  Inaugural  Address. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN .* 1861       508 


V'iii  CONTENTS, 


Union  Mass  Meeting. 

DANIEL  STEVENS  DICKINSON.. 1861       515 

Address  at  Amherst. 

DANIEL  STEVENS  DICKINSON 1861      520 

The  Rebellion  ;  Its  Origin  and  Mainspring. 

CHARLES  SUMNER 1861       541 

The  War  for  the  Union. 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS. J, 1861      562 

Emancipation  Proclamation. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 1863      582 

Emancipation  Immediate,  not  Gradual. 

CHARLES  SUMNER 1863      583 

National  Cemetery  at  Gettysburg. 

EDWARD  EVERETT 1863      588 

Speech  at  Gettysburg. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 1863      614 

The  Treason  of  Slavery. 

CARL  SCHURZ » 1864      615 

Second  Inaugural  Address. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 1865      637 

The  Martyr  President. 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 1865      639 

The  Death  of  Lincoln. 

GEORGE  BANCROFT 1865      647 

The  Burial  of  Lincoln. 

MATTHEW  SIMPSON 1865      653 

The  Double  Anniversary  ;  '76  and  '63. 

CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS,  JR 1869      663 

Centennial  Oration. 

ROBERT  CHARLES  WINTHROP 1876      668 


PERIOD  FIRST. 


FOUNDATION. 


Thou,  too,  sail  on,  O  Ship  of  State  f 

Sail  on,  O  UNION,  strong  and  great  t 

Humanity,  -with  all  its  fears, 

With  all  the  hopes  of  future  yearj. 
Is  hanging  breathless  on  thy  fate  ! 

We  know  what  Master  laid  thy  keel, 

What   Workmen   wrought  thy  ribs  of  steel* 

Who  made  each  mast,  and  sail,  and  rope^ 

What  anvils  rang,  what  hammers  beat. 
In  what  a  forge  and  what  a  heat 

Were  shaped  the  anchors  of  thy  hope  t 
Fear  not  each  sudden  sound  and  shock, 
'Tis  of  the  wave  and  not  the  rock* 
'  T  is  but  the  flapping  of  the  sail, 
And  not  a  rent  made  by  the  gale  f 
In  spite  of  rock  and  tempest's  roar, 
In  spite  of  false  lights  on  the  shore, 
Sail  on,  nor  fear  to  breast  the  sea  / 
Our  hearts,  our  hopes,  are  all  with  thee, 
Our  hearts,  our  hopes,  our  prayers,  our  tears, 
Our  faith  triumphant  o^er  our  fears, 
Are  all  with  thee,—are  all  with  thee  ! 

HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW. 


AMERICAN    PATRIOTISM. 


PROTEST  OF   BOSTON   AGAINST  TAXATION. 

SAMUEL    ADAMS. 
Boston,  May  24,  1764. 

To    Royal    Tyler,     Jatncs    Otis,     Thomas    dishing,    and    Oxenbridgc 

7^/Kicher,  Esquires: 

GENTLEMEN — Your  being  chosen  by  the  freeholders  and  inhabitants 
of  the  Town  of  Boston  to  represent  them  in  the  General  Assembly 
the  ensuing  year,  affords  you  the  strongest  testimony  of  that  confi 
dence  which  they  place  in  your  integrity  and  capacity.  By  this  choice 
they  have  delegated  to  you  the  power  of  acting  in  their  public  concerns 
in  general  as  your  own  prudence  shall  direct  you,  always  reserving  to 
themselves  the  constitutional  right  of  expressing  their  mind,  and  giv 
ing  you  such  instructions  upon  particular  matters  as  they  at  any  time 
shall  judge  proper. 

We  therefore,  your  constituents,  take  this  opportunity  to  declare 
our  just  expectations  from  you,  that  you  will  constantly  use  your 
power  and  influence  in  maintaining  the  valuable  rights  and  privileges 
of  the  province,  of  which  this  town  is  so  great  a  part,  as  well  those 
rights  which  are  derived  to  us  by  the  royal  charter,  as  those  which 
being  prior  to  and  independent  of  it,  we  hold  essentially  as  free-born 
subjects  of  Great  Britain. 

That  you  will  endeavor,  as  far  as  you  shall  be  able,  to  preserve 
that  independence  in  the  House  of  Representatives  which  charac 
terizes  a  free  people,  and  the  want  of  which  may  in  a  great  measure 
prevent  the  happy  efforts  of  a  free  government ;  cultivating  as  you 
shall  have  opportunity  that  harmony  and  union  there  which  is  ever 
desirable  to  good  men,  which  is  founded  on  principles  of  virtue  and  pub 
lic  spirit,  and  guarding  against  any  undue  weight  which  may  tend  to 
disadjust  that  critical  balance  upon  which  our  happy  constitution  and 
the  blessings  of  it  do  depend.  And  for  this  purpose  we  particularly 
recommend  it  to  you  to  use  your  endeavors  to  have  a  law  passed, 
whereby  the  scats  of  such  gentlemen  as  shall  accept  of  por'.s  of 


2  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

profit  from  the  Crown  or  the  Governor,  while  they  are  members  of 
the  House,  shall  be  vacated  agreeably  to  an  act  of  the  British  Parlia 
ment,  till  their  constituents  shall  have  the  opportunity  of  re-electing 
them,  if  they  please,  or  of  returning  others  in  their  room. 

Being  members  of  the  legislative  body,  you  will  have  a  special  re 
gard  to  thejnqrals  of  this  people,  which  are  the  basis  of  public  happi 
ness,  and  erideaj^i" to-h^ve  such  laws  made,  if  any  are  still  wanting, 
as  shall  be'be'st  adapted' to  secure  them  ;  and  we  particularly  desire  you 
car.efuHy  to.  look  into  the  iat/s  of  excise,  that  if  the  virtue  of  the  peo- 
"•pie  is'£H<4arlgered  by  tVe  multiplicity  of  oaths  therein  enjoined,  or  their 
trade  arid  business" is*  unreasonably  impeded  or  embarrassed  thereby, 
the  grievance  may  be  redressed. 

As  the  preservation  of  morals,  as  well  as  of  property  and  right,  so 
much  depends  upon  the  impartial  distribution  of  justice,  agreeable  to 
good  and  wholesome  law  ;  and  as  the  judges  of  the  land  do  depend 
upon  the  free  grants  of  the  General  Assembly  for  support,  it  is  in 
cumbent  upon  you  at  all  times  to  give  your  voice  for  their  honorable 
maintenance,  so  long  as  they,  having  in  their  minds  an  indifference 
to  all  other  affairs,  shall  devote  themselves  wholly  to  the  duties  of 
their  own  department  and  the  farther  study  of  the  law,  by  which  their 
customs,  precedents,  proceedings  and  determinations  are  adjusted  and 
limited. 

You  will  remember  that  this  province  hath  been  at  a  very  great 
expense  in  carrying  on  the  war,  and  that  it  still  lies  under  a  very 
grievous  burden  of  debt ;  you  will  therefore  use  your  utmost  endeavor 
to  promote  public  frugality  as  one  means  to  lessen  the  public  debt. 

You  will  join  in  any  proposals  which  may  be  made  for  the  better 
cultivating  the  lands,  and  improving  the  husbandry  of  the  province; 
and  as  you  represent  a  town  which  lives  by  its  trade,  we  expect  in  a 
very  particular  manner,  though  you  make  it  the  object  of  your  atten 
tion  to  support  our  commerce  in  all  its  just  rights,  to  vindicate  it  from 
all  unreasonable  impositions  and  promote  its  prosperity.  Our  trade 
has  for  a  long  time  labored  under  great  discouragements,  and  it  is 
with  the  deepest  concern  that  we  see  such  farther  difficulties  coming 
upon  it  as  will  reduce  it  to  the  lowest  ebb,  if  not  totally  obstruct  and 
ruin  it.  We  cannot  help  expressing  our  surprise  that  when  so  early 
notice  was  given  by  the  agent  of  the  intentions  of  the  Ministry  to 
burden  us  with  new  taxes,  so  little  regard  was  had  to  this  most  inter 
esting  matter,  that  the  Court  was  not  even  called  together  to  consult 
about  it  till  the  latter  end  of  the  year  ;  the  consequence  of  which  was, 
that  instructions  could  not  be  sent  to  the  agent,  though  solicited  by 
him,  till  the  evil  had  gone  beyond  an  easy  remedy. 

There  is  now  no  room  for  farther  delay  ;  we  therefore  expect  that 
you  v.  ill  use  your  earliest  endeavors  in  the  General  Assembly  that 
such  methods  may  be  taken  as  will  effectually  prevent  these  proceed 
ing  arjainst  us.  By  a  proper  representatio'n  we  apprehend  it  may 


SAMUEL  ADAMS, 

v) 

easily  be  made  to  appear  that  such  severities  will  prove  detrimental  to 
Great  Britain  itself  ;  upon  which  account  we  have  reason  to  hope  that 
an  application,  even  for  a  repeal  of  the  act,  should  it  be  already 
passed,  will  be  successful.  It  is  the  trade  of  the  colonies  that  renders 
them  beneficial  to  the  mother  country  ;  our  trade  as  it  is  now,  and 
always  has  been  conducted,  centres  in  Great  Britain,  and,  in  return  for 
her  manufactures,  affords  her  more  ready  cash  beyond  any  compari 
son  than  can  possibly  be  expected  by  the  most  sanguinary  promotor 
of  these  extraordinary  methods.  We  are,  in  short,  ultimately  yield 
ing  large  supplies  to  the  revenues  of  the  mother  country,  while  we  are 
laboring  for  a  very  moderate  subsistence  for  ourselves.  But  if  our 
trade  is  to  be  curtailed  in  its  most  profitable  branches,  and  burdens 
beyond  all  possible  bearing  laid  upon  that  which  is  suffered  to  remain, 
we  shall  be  so  far  from  being  able  to  take  off  the  manufactures  of 
Great  Britain,  though  it  will  be  scarce  possible  for  us  to  earn  our 
bread. 

But  what  still  heightens  our  apprehensions  is,  that  these  unex 
pected  proceedings  may  be  preparatory  to  new  taxations  upon  us;  for 
if  our  trade  may  be  taxed,  why  not  our  lands  ?  Why  not  the  produce 
of  our  lands  and  everything  we  possess  or  make  use  of?  This  we 
apprehend  annihilates  our  charter  right  to  govern  and  tax  ourselves. 
It  strikes  at  our  British  privileges,  which,  as  we  have  never  forfeited 
them,  we  hold  in  common  with  our  fellow  subjects  who  are  natives  of 
Britain.  If  taxes  are  laid  upon  us  in  any  shape  without  our  having  a 
legal  representation  where  they  are  laid,  are  we  not  reduced  from  the 
character  of  free  subjects  to  the  miserable  state  of  tributary  slaves  ? 

We  therefore  earnestly  recommend  it  to  you  to  use  your  utmost  en 
deavors  to  obtain  in  the  General  Assembly  all  necessary  instruction 
and  advice  to  our  agent  at  this  most  critical  juncture  ;  that  while  he 
is  setting  forth  the  unshaken  loyalty  of  this  province  and  this  town 
— its  unrivaled  exertion  in  supporting  his  Majesty's  government  and 
rights  in  this  part  of  his  dominions — its  acknowledged  dependence  upon 
and  subordination  to  Great  Britain,  and  the  ready  submission  of  its 
merchants  to  all  just  and  necessary  regulations  of  trade,  he  may  be 
able  in  the  most  humble  and  pressing  manner  to  remonstrate  for  us 
all  those  rights  and  privileges  which  justly  belong  to  us  either  by 
charter  or  birth. 

As  his  Majesty's  other  Northern  American  colonies  are  embarked  with 
i;s  in  this  most  important  bottom,  we  farther  desire  you  to  use  your 
endeavors  that  their  weight  may  be  added  to  that  of  this  province,  that 
by  the  united  application  of  all  who  are  aggrieved,  all  may  happily 
obtain  redress. 


AMERICAN  PA  TRIOTISM. 

THE  GRIEVANCES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES. 
STEPHEN   HOPKINS. 

Providence,  July  30,  1764. 

Liberty  is  the  greatest  blessing  that  men  enjoy,  and  slavery  the 
greatest  curse  that  human  nature  is  capable  of.  Hence  it  is  a  matter 
of  the  utmost  importance  to  men  which  of  the  two  shall  be  their  por 
tion.  Absolute  liberty,  is,  perhaps,  incompatible  with  any  kind  of 
government.  The  safety  resulting  from  society,  and  the  advantages 
of  just  and  equal  laws,  hath  caused  men  to  forego  some  part  of  their 
natural  liberty,  and  submit  to  government.  This  appears  to  be  the 
most  rational  account  of  its  beginning,  although,  it  must  be  confessed, 
mankind  have  by  no  means  been  agreed  about  it ;  some  have  found 
its  origin  in  the  divine  appointment  ;  others  have  thought  it  took  its 
rise  from  power ;  enthusiasts  have  dreamed  that  dominion  was 
founded  in  grace.  Leaving  these  points  to  be  settled  by  the  descend 
ants  of  Filmer,  Cromwell,  and  Venner,  we  shall  consider  the  British 
(Constitution,  as  it  at  present  stands,  on  revolution  principles  ;  and 
from  thence  endeavor  to  find  the  measure  of  the  magistrates'  power 
and  the  people's  obedience. 

This  glorious  Constitution,  the  best  that  ever  existed  among  men, 
will  be  confessed  by  all  to  be  founded  on  compact,  and  established  by 
consent  of  the  people.  By  this  most  beneficent  compact,  British  sub 
jects  are  to  be  governed  only  agreeably  to  laws  to  which  themselves 
have  in  some  way  consented,  and  are  not  to  be  compelled  to  part 
with  their  property  but  as  it  is  called  for  by  the  authority  of  such 
laws.  The  former  is  truly  liberty  ;  the  latter  is  to  be  really  pos 
sessed  of  property,  and  to  have  something  that  may  be  called  one's  own. 

On  the  contrary,  those  who  are  governed  at  the  will  of  another,  or 
others,  and  whose  property  may  be  taken  from  them  by  taxes,  or 
otherwise,  without  their  own  consent,  or  against  their  will,  are  in  a 
miserable  condition  of  slavery;  "for  (says  Algernon  Sidney,  in  his 
discourse  on  government),  liberty  solely  consists  in  the  independency 
upon  the  will  of  another  ;  and  by  name  of  slave  we  understand  a  man 
who  can  neither  dispose  of  his  person  or  goods,  and  enjoys  all  at  the 
will  of  his  master."  These  things  premised,  whether  the  British 
American  colonies  on  the  cominent  are  justly  entitled  to  like  privi 
leges  and  freedoms  as  their  fellow-subjects  in  Great  Britain  are,  is  a 
point  worthy  mature  examination.  In  discussing  this  question  we 
?hall  make  the  colonies  of  New  England,  with  whose  rights  we  are 
best  acquainted,  the  rule  of  our  reasoning  ;  not  in  the  least  doubting 
all  the  others  are  justly  entitled  to  like  rights  with  them. 


STEP/I  EX   J/OI>A'L\'S.  5 

New  England  was  first  planted  by  adventurers,  who  left  England, 
their  native  country,  by  permission  of  King  Charles  the  First,  and  at 
their  own  expense  transported  themselves  to  America,  and,  with  great 
risk  and  difficulty,  settled  among  the  savages,  and,  in  a  very  surprising 
manner,  formed  new  colonies  in  the  wilderness.  Before  their  de 
parture  the  terms  of  their  freedom,  and  the  relation  they  should  stand 
in  to  the  mother  country,  were  fully  settled.  They  were  to  remain 
subject  to  the  King,  and  dependant  on  the  kingdom  of  Great  Britain. 
In  return  they  were  to  receive  protection,  and  enjoy  all  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  free-born  Englishmen.  This  is  abundantly  proved  by 
the  charter  given  to  the  Massachusetts  colony,  while  they  were  still 
in  England,  and  which  they  received  and  brought  over  with  them,  as 
an  authentic  evidence  of  the  condition  they  removed  upon.  The  col 
onies  of  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island,  also,  afterwards  obtained 
charters  from  the  Crown  granting  like  ample  privileges.  By  all  these 
charters  it  is  in  the  most  express  and  solemn  manner  granted  that 
these  adventurers,  and  their  children  after  them  forever,  should  have 
and  enjoy  all  the  freedom  and  liberty  that  the  subjects  in  England 
enjoy.  That  they  might  make  laws  for  their  government,  suitable  to 
their  circumstances,  not  repugnant  to,  but  as  near  as  might  be  agree 
able  to,  the  laws  of  England  ;  that  they  might  purchase  lands,  acquire 
goods,  and  use  trade  for  their  advantage,  and  have  an  absolute  prop 
erty  in  whatever  they  justly  acquired.  This,  with  many  other  gracious 
privileges,  were  granted  them  by  several  kings  ;  and  they  were  to  pay, 
as  an  acknowledgment  to  the  Crown,  only  one-fifth  of  the  ore  of  gold 
and  silver  that  should  at  any  time  be  found  in  the  State  colonies  ;  in 
lieu  of  a  full  satisfaction  for  all  dues  and  demands  of  the  Crown  and 
kingdom  of  England  upon  them. 

There  is  not  anything  new  or  extraordinary  in  these  rights  granted 
to  the  British  colonies.  The  colonies  from  all  countries  at  all  times 
have  enjoyed  equal  freedom  with  the  mother  state.  Indeed,  there 
would  be  found  very  few  people  in  the  world  willing  to  leave  their 
native  country,  and  go  through  the  fatigue  and  hardship  of  planting 
in  a  new,  uncultivated  one,  for  the  sake  of  losing  their  freedom. 
They  who  settle  new  countries  must  be  poor,  and  in  course,  ought  to 
be  free.  Advantages,  pecuniary  and  agreeable,  are  not  on  the  side 
of  the  emigrants  ;  and  surely  they  must  have  something  in  their 
stead. 

To  illustrate  this,  permit  us  to  examine  what  hath  generally  been 
the  condition  of  the  colonies  with  respect  to  their  freedom.  We  will 
begin  with  ttu,se  who  went  out  from  the  ancient  Commonwealth  of 
Greece,  which  are  the  first,  perhaps,  we  have  any  good  account  of. 
Thucydides,  that  grave  and  judicious  historian,  says  of  them  "they 
were  not  sent  out  to  be  slaves,  but  to  be  the  equals  of  those  who  re 
mained  behind  ;"  and  again,  the  Corinthians  gave  public  notice  "that 
the  new  colony  was  going  to  Epidamus,  into  which  all  that  should 


6  AMERICAN  PATRIOT  ISM. 

enter  should  have  equal  and  like  privileges  with  those  who  stayed  at 
home." 

This  was  uniformly  the  condition  of  the  Grecian  colonies;  they 
went  out  and  settled  new  countries;  they  took  such  forms  of  govern 
ment  as  themselves  chose,  though  it  generally  nearly  resembled  that 
of  the  mother  state,  whether  democratical  or  orligarchical.  Tis  true 
they  were  fond  to  acknowledge  their  original,  and  always  confessed 
themselves  under  obligation  to  pay  a  kind  of  honorary  respect  to,  and 
shvw  a  filial  dependance  on  the  commonwealth  from  whence  it  sprung. 
Thucidides  again  tells  us  that  the  Corinthians  complained  of  the 
Corcyrans  "from  whom,  though  a  colony  of  their  own,  they  had 
received  some  contemptuous  treatment ;  for  they  neither  paid  them 
the  usual  honor  on  their  public  solemnities,  nor  began  with  the  Cor 
inthians  in  the  distribution  of  the  sacrifice  which  is  always  done  by 
other  colonies."  From  hence  it  is  plain  what  kind  of  dependance  the 
Greek  colonies  were  in,  and  what  sort  of  acknowledgment  they  owed 
to  the  mother  state. 

If  we  pass  from  the  Grecian  to  the  Roman  colonies  we  shall  find 
them  not  less  free  ;  but  this  difference  may  be  observed  between  them, 
that  the  Roman  colonies  did  not,  like  the  Grecian,  become  separate 
states,  governed  by  different  laws,  but  always  remained  a  part  of  the 
mother  state  ;  all  that  were  free  of  the  colonies  were  always  free  of 
Rome.  And  Grotins  gives  us  an  opinion  of  the  Roman  King  concern 
ing  the  freedom  of  the  colonies.  King  Tullus  says,  "for  our  part, 
we  look  upon  it  to  be  neither  truth  nor  justice  that  the  mother  cities 
ought  of  necessity  to  rule  over  their  colonies." 

When  we  come  down  to  the  latter  ages  of  the  world,  and  consider 
the  colonies  planted  in  the  three  last  centuries  in  America  from  several 
kingdoms  in  Europe,  we  shall  find  them,  says  Puffcndorf,  very  differ 
ent  from  the  ancient  colonies,  and  he  gives  us  an  instance  in  those  of 
the  Spaniards.  Although  it  be  confessed  they  fall  greatly  short  of 
enjoying  equal  freedom  with  the  ancient  Greek  and  Roman  ones,  yet 
it  will  be  truly  said  they  enjoy  equal  freedom  Avith  their  countrymen 
in  Spain  ;  but  as  they  are  all  in  the  government  of  an  absolute 
monarch  they  have  no  reason  to  complain  that  one  enjoys  the  liberty 
the  other  is  deprived  of.  The  French  colonies  will  be  found  nearly  in 
the  same  condition,  and  for  the  same  reason,  because  their  fellow- 
subjects  of  France  have  always  lost  their  liberty.  And  the  question 
is  whether  all  colonies,  as  compared  with  one  another,  enjoy  equal 
liberty,  or  whether  all  enjoy  as  much  freedom  as  the  inhabitants  of 
the  mother  state  ;  and  this  will  hardly  be  denied  in  the  case  of  the 
Spanish,  French,  and  other  modern  foreign  colonies. 

By  this  it  fully  appears  that  colonies  in  general,  both  ancient  and 
modern,  have  always  enjoyed  as  much  freedom  as  the  mother  state 
from  which  they  went  out ;  and  will  any  one  suppose  the  British 
colonies  of  America  are  an  exception  to  this  general  rule?  Colonies 


STEP II EX  IIOPKIXS.  7 

that  came  from  a  kingdom,  renowned  for  liberty;  from  the  constitution 
founded  on  compact,  from  the  people  of  all  the  sons  of  men  the  most 
tenacious  of  freedom  ;  who  left  the  delights  of  their  native  country, 
parted  from  their  homes  and  all  their  conveniences,  searched  out  and 
subdued  a  foreign  country,  with  the  most  amazing  travail  and  forti 
tude,  to  the  infinite  advantage  and  emolument  of  the  mother  state  ; 
that  removed  on  a  firm  reliance  of  the  solemn  compact  and  real 
promise  and  grant  that  they  and  their  successors  should  be  free,  should 
be  partakers  in  all  the  privileges  and  advantages  of  the  then  English, 
now  English  constitution. 

If  it  were  possible  a  doubt  could  yet  remain  in  the  most  unbelieving 
mind  that  these  British  colonies  are  not  every  way  justly  and  fully 
entitled  to  equal  liberty  and  freedom  with  their  fellow-subjects  in 
Europe,  we  might  show  that  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  have 
always  understood  their  rights  in  the  same  light. 

By  an  act  passed  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  His  Majesty, 
King  George  the  Second,  entitled  "  An  Act  for  naturalizing  Foreign 
Protestants,  etc.,"  and  by  another  act  passed  in  the  same  reign,  for 
nearly  the  same  purposes,  by  both  which  it  is  enacted  and  ordained, 
"  That  all  foreign  Protestants  who  had  inhabited,  and  resided  for  the 
space  of  seven  years,  or  more,  in  His  Majesty's  colonies  in  America," 
might,  on  the  conditions  therein  mentioned,  be  naturalized,  and  there 
upon  should  be  "deemed,  adjudged,  and  taken  to  be  His  Majesty's 
natural  born  subjects  of  the  kingdom  of  Great  Britain,  to  all  intents, 
constructions,  and  purposes,  as  if  they  and  every  one  of  them  had 
been,  or  were  born  within  the  same."  No  reasonable  man  will  here 
suppose  that  Parliament  intended,  in  those  acts,  to  put  foreigners  who 
had  been  in  the  colonies  only  seven  years,  in  a  better  condition  than 
than  those  who  had  been  born  in  them,  or  had  removed  from  Britain 
thither,  but  only  to  put  these  foreigners  on  an  equality  with  them  ; 
and  to  do  this,  they  are  obliged  to  give  them  all  the  rights  of  natural- 
born  subjects  of  Great  Britain. 

From  what  has  been  shown  it  will  appear  beyond  a  doubt  that  the 
British  subjects  in  America  have  equal  rights  with  those  in  Britain  ; 
that  they  do  not  hold  those  rights  and  privileges  granted  them,  but 
possess  them  as  inherent  and  indefeasible. 

And  the  British  legislative  and  executive  powers  have  considered 
the  colonies  as  possessed  of  these  rights,  and  have  always,  heretofore, 
in  the  most  tender  and  parental  manner,  treated  them  as  their  depend 
ant  (though  free)  condition  required.  The  protection  promised  on  the 
part  of  the  Crown,  which  with  cheerfulness  and  gratitude  we  acknowl 
edge,  hath  at  all  times  been  given  to  the  colonies.  The  dependance 
of  the  colonies  to  Great  Britain  hath  been  fully  testified  by  a  constant 
and  ready  obedience  to  all  the  commands  of  his  present  Majesty,  and 
royal  predecessors  ;  both  men  and  money  having  been  raised  in  them 
at  all  times  when  called  for,  with  as  much  alacrity  and  in  as  large  pro- 


8  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

portion  as  hath  been  done  in  Great  Britain,  the  ability  of  each  con 
sidered.  It  must  also  be  confessed  with  thankfulness,  that  the  first 
adventurers  and  their  successors,  for  one  hundred  and  thirty  years, 
have  fully  enjoyed  all  the  freedom  and  immunities  promised  on  their 
removal  from  England.  But  here  the  scene  seems  to  be  unhappily 
changing.  The  British  ministry,  whether  induced  by  jealousy  of  the 
colonies,  by  false  information,  or  by  some  alteration  in  the  system  of 
political  government,  we  have  no  information  ;  whatever  hath  been 
the  motive,  this  we  are  sure  of,  the  Parliament  passed  an  act,  limiting, 
restricting,  and  burdening  the  trade  of  these  colonies  much  more  than 
had  ever  been  done  before,  as  also  for  greatly  enlarging  the  power 
and  jurisdiction  of  the  courts  of  admiralty  in  the  colonies,  and  likewise 
passed  another  act  establishing  certain  stamp  duties.  These  acts 
have  occasioned  great  uneasiness  among  the  British  subjects  on  the 
continent  of  America.  How  much  reason  there  is  for  it,  we  will  en 
deavor  in  the  most  modest  and  plain  manner  we  can,  to  lay  before 
the  public. 

In  the  first  place,  let  it  be  considered  that  although  each  of  the  colo 
nies  hath  a  legislature  within  itself,  to  take  care  of  its  interests  and 
provide  for  its  peace  and  internal  government,  yet  there  are  many 
things  of  a  more  general  nature,  quite  out  of  the  reach  of  these  particu 
lar  legislatures  which  it  is  necessary  should  be  regulated,  ordered,  and 
governed.  One  of  this  kind  is  the  commerce  of  the  whole  British  em 
pire,  taken  collectively,  and  that  of  each  kingdom  and  colony  in  it  as 
it  makes  a  part  of  that  whole — indeed,  everything  that  concerns  the 
proper  interest  and  fit  government  of  the  whole  commonwealth,  of 
keeping  the  peace,  and  subordination  of  all  the  parts  towards  the  whole 
and  one  among  another,  must  be  considered  in  this  light.  Amongst 
these  general  concerns,  perhaps  money  and  paper  credit,  these  grand 
instruments  of  all  commerce,  will  be  found  also  to  have  a  place. 
These,  with  all  other  matters  of  a  general  nature,  it  is  absolutely  neces 
sary  should  have  a  general  power  to  direct  them  ;  some  supreme  and 
overruling  authority  with  power  to  make  laws  and  form  regulations 
for  the  good  of  all,  and  to  compel  their  execution  and  observance.  It 
being  necessary  some  such  general  power  should  exist  somewhere, 
every  man  of  the  least  knowledge  of  the  British  constitution,  will  natu 
rally  be  led  to  look  for  and  find  it  in  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  ; 
that  grand  and  august  legislative  body  must  from  the  nature  of  its 
authority  and  the  necessity  of  the  thing  be  justly  vested  with  this 
power.  Hence  it  becomes  the  indispensable  duty  of  every  good  and 
loyal  subject  cheerfully  to  obey  and  patiently  submit  to  all  the  acts, 
laws,  orders,  and  regulations  that  may  be  made  and  passed  by  Parlia 
ment  for  directing  and  governing  all  these  general  matters. 

Here  it  may  be  urged  by  many,  and  indeed  with  great  appearance 
of  reason,  that  the  equity,  justice,  and  beneficence  of  the  British  Con 
stitution  will  require  that  the  separate  kingdoms  and  distinct  colonies. 


STEPIIEX  UOTKIXS.  9 

who  are  to  obey  and  be  governed  by  these  general  laws  and  regula 
tions,  ought  to 'be  represented  in  some  way  or  other  in  Parliament,  at 
least  while  these  general  maiters  are  under  consideration.  Whether 
the  colonies  will  ever  be  admitted  to  have  representatives  in  Parlia 
ment — whether  it  be  consistent  with  their  distant  and  dependant 
state  ;  whether,  if  it  were  admitted,  it  would  be  to  their  advantage 
— are  questions  we  will  pass  by,  and  observe  that  these  colonies 
ought,  in  justice,  and  for  the  evident  good  of  the  commonwealth,  to 
have  notice  of  every  new  measure  about  to  be  pursued,  and  new  act 
about  to  be  passed,  by  which  their  rights,  liberties,  and  interests  may 
be  affected  ;  they  ought  to  have  such  notice,  that  they  may  appear  or 
be  heard  by  their  agents,  by  counsel,  or  written  representation,  or  by 
some  other  equitable  and  effectual  way. 

The  colonies  ate  at  so  great  a  distance  from  England  that  the  mem 
bers  of  Parliament  can  generally  have  but  little  knowledge  of  their 
business,  connections,  and  interests,  but  what  is  gained  frpm  the  peo 
ple  who  have  been  there  ;  the  most  of  those  have  so  slight  a  knowledge 
themselves  that  the  informations  they  can  give  are  very  little  to  be 
depended  upon,  though  they  may  pretend  to  determine  with  confidence 
on  matters  far  above  their  reach.  All  such  informations  are  too  un 
certain  to  be  depended  on  in  the  transacting  business  of  so  much  con 
sequence,  and  in  which  the  interests  of  two  millions  of  free  people  are 
so  deeply  concerned.  There  is  no  kind  of  inconvenience  or  mischief 
can  arise  from  the  colonies  having  such  notice,  and  being  heard  in  the 
manner  above  mentioned  ;  but  on  the  contrary,  very  great  mischiefs 
have  already  happened  to  the  colonies,  and  always  must  be  expected, 
if  they  are  not  heard  before  things  of  such  importance  are  determined 
concerning  them. 

Had  the  colonies  been  fully  heard  before  the  last  act  had  been  passed, 
no  reasonable  man  can  suppose  it  ever  would  .have  passed  at  all,  in 
the  manner  it  now  stands.  For  what  good  reason  can  possibly  be 
given  for  making  a  law  to  cramp  the  trade  and  interest  of  many  of  the 
colonies,  and  at  the  same  time  lessen  in  a  prodigious  manner  the  con 
sumption  of  the  British  manufactures  in  them  ?  These  are  certainly 
the  effects  this  act  must  produce.  The  duty  of  three  pence  per  gallon 
on  foreign  molasses  is  well-known  to  every  man  in  the  least  acquaint 
ed  with  it  to  be  much  higher  than  that  article  can  possibly  bear,  and 
therefore  must  operate  as  an  absolute  prohibition.  This  will  put  a 
total  stop  to  the  exportation  of  lumber,  horses,  flour,  and  fish  to  the 
French  and  Dutch  sugar-colonies  ;  and  if  any  one  supposes  we  may 
find  a  sufficient  sale  for  these  articles  in  the  English  West  Indies,  he 
verifies  what  was  just  now  observed,  that  he  wants  true  information. 
Putting  an  end  to  the  importation  of  foreign  molasses  at  the  same 
time  puts  an  end  to  all  the  costly  distilleries  in  these  colonies  and  to 
the  rum  trade  with  the  coast  of  Africa,  and  throws  it  into  the  hands  of 
the  French?  With  the  loss  of  the  foreign  molasses  trade  the  cod-fish- 


io  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

ing  in  America  must  also  be  lost  and  thrown  also  into  the  hands  of  the 
French.  That  this  is  the  real  state  of  the  whole  business  is  not  mere 
fancy  ;  neither  this  nor  any  part  of  it  is  an  exaggeration,  but  a  sober 
and  most  melancholy  truth. 

View  this  duty  of  three  pence  per  gallon  on  foreign  molasses,  not  in 
the  light  of  a  prohibition,  but  supposing  the  trade  to  continue  and  the 
duty  to  be  paid.  Heretofore  hath  been  imported  into  the  colony  of 
Rhode  Island  only  about  one  million,  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
gallons  annually  ;  the  duty  on  this  quantity  is  ,£14,375  sterling,  to  be 
paid  yearly  by  this  little  colony  ;  a  larger  sum  than  was  ever  in  it  at 
any  one  time.  This  money  is  to  be  sent  away,  and  never  to  return ; 
yet  the  payment  is  to  be  repeated  every  year.  Can  this  possibly  be 
clone  ?  Can  a  new  colony,  compelled  by  necessity  to  purchase  all  its 
clothing,  furniture,  and  utensils  from  England,  to  support  the  expen 
ses  of  its  own  internal  government,  obliged  by  its  duty  to  comply  with 
every  call  from  the  Crown,  to  raise  money  in  emergencies;  after  all 
this,  can  every  man  in  it  pay  twenty-four  shillings  a  year  for  the  du 
ties  of  a  single  article  only?  There  is  surely  no  man  in  his  right  mind 
believes  this  possible.  The  charging  foreign  molasses  with  this  high 
duty  will  not  affect  all  the  colonies  equally,  nor  any  other  near  so 
much  as  this  of  Rhode  Island,  whose  trade  depended  more  on  foreign 
molasses  and  on  distilleries  than  that  of  any  other;  this  must  show 
that  raising  money  for  the  general  services  of  the  Crown  or  colonies 
by  such  a  duty  will  be  extremely  unequal,  and  therefore  unjust.  And 
by  taking  either  alternative,  and  by  supposing,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
foreign  molasses  trade  is  stopped,  and  with  it  the  principal  ability  of 
the  colonies  to  get  money,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  that  this  trade  is 
continued  and  that  the  colonies  get  money  from  it,  but  all  their  money 
is  taken  from  them  by  paying  their  duty;  can  Britain  be  the  gainer 
by  this?  Is  it  not  the  chosen  interest  of  Britain  to  dispose  of 
and  be  paid  for  her  own  manufactures?  And  doth  she  not  find 
the  greatest  and  best  market  for  them  in  her  own  colonies?  Will 
she  find  an  advantage  in  disabling  the  colonies  to  continue  their 
trade  with  her?  Or  can  she  possibly  grow  rich  by  their  being  made 
poor? 

Ministers  have  great  influence,  and  parliaments  have  great  power; 
can  either  of  them  change  the  nature  of  things,  stop  our  means  of 
getting  money,  and  yet  expect  us  to  purchase  and  pay  for  British 
manufactures?  The  genius  of  the  people  in  these  colonies  is  as  little 
turned  to  manufacturing  goods  for  their  own  use  as  is  possible  to  sup 
pose  in  any  people  whatsoever,  yet  necessity  will  compel  them  either 
to  go  naked  in  this  cold  country,  or  to  make  themselves  something 
of  clothing,  if  it  be  only  of  the  skins  of  beasts. 

By  the  same  act  of  parliament  the  exportation  of  all  kinds  of  timber 
or  lumber,  the  most  natural  product  of  these  colonies,  is  greatly  en 
cumbered  and  uselessly  embarrassed,  and  the  shipping  it  to  any  port 


STEPHEN  HOPKINS.  II 

in  Europe  except  Great  Britain  is  prohibited.  This  must  greatly  af 
fect  the  linen  manufacture  in  Ireland,  as  that  kingdom  used  to  receive 
great  quantities  of  flax-seed  from  America,  many  cargoes  being  made 
of  that,  and  barrel-staves  were  sent  thither  every  year;  but  as  the 
staves  can  no  longer  be  exported  thither,  the  ships  carrying  flax-seed 
casks  without  the  staves  which  used  to  be  intermixed  among  them  must 
lose  one  half  of  their  weight,  which  will  prevent  their  continuing  this 
trade,  to  the  great  injury  to  Ireland  and  of  the  plantations;  and  what 
advantage  is  to  accrue  to  Great  Britain  by  it  must  be  told  by  those  who 
can  perceive  the  utility  of  this  measure. 

Enlarging  the  power  and  jurisdiction  of  the  courts  of  vice-admiralty 
in  the  colonies,  is  another  part  of  the  same  act  greatly  and  justly 
complained  of.  Courts  of  admiralty  have  long  been  there  in  most  of 
the  colonies  whose  authority  were  circumscribed  within  moderate  ter 
ritorial  jurisdictions,  and  whose  courts  have  always  done  the  business 
necessary  to  be  brought  before  these  courts  for  trial  in  the  manner  it 
ought  to  be  done,  and  in  a  way  only  moderately  expensive  to  the  sub 
jects  ;  and  if  seizures  were  made,  or  informations  exhibited,  without 
reason  or  contrary  to  law,  the  informer  or  seizer  was  left  to  the  jus 
tice  of  the  common  law,  there  to  pay  for  his  folly  or  suffer  for  his 
temerity. 

But  now  this  case  is  quite  altered,  and  a  custom-house  officer  may 
make  a  seizure  in  Georgia  of  goods  ever  so  legally  imported,  and 
carry  the  trial  to  Halifax,  at  fifteen  hundred  miles  distance,  and 
thither  the  owner  must  follow  him  to  defend  his  property;  and  when 
he  comes  there,  quite  beyond  the  circle  of  his  friends,  acquaintance, 
and  correspondence,  among  total  strangers,  he  must  there  give  bond, 
and  must  find  sureties  to  be  bound  with  him  in  a  large  sum  before  he 
shall  be  admitted  to  claim  his  own  goods  ;  when  this  is  complied  with, 
he  hath  a  trial  and  his  goods  acquitted.  If  the  judge  can  be  prevailed 
upon  (which  it  is  very  well  known  may  too  easily  be  done)  to  cer 
tify  there  was  only  probable  cause  for  making  the  seizure,  the  un 
happy  owner  may  not  maintain  any  action  against  the  illegal  seizure 
for  damages,  or  obtain  any  satisfaction  ;  but  he  may  return  to  Georgia 
quite  ruined  and  undone,  in  conformity  to  an  act  of  parliament.  Such 
unbounded  encouragement  and  protection  given  to  informers  must 
call  to  every  one's  remembrance  Tacitus's  account  of  the  miserable 
condition  of  the  Romans  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius  their  emperor,  who 
let  loose  and  encouraged  the  informers  of  that  age.  Surely,  if  the 
colonies  had  been  fully  heard  before  this  had  been  done,  the  liberties 
of  the  Americans  would  not  have  been  so  much  disregarded. 

The  resolution  that  the  House  of  Commons  came  into  during  the 
same  session  of  parliament,  asserting  their  right  to  establish  stamp 
duties  and  internal  taxes,  to  be  collected  in  the  colonies  without  their 
own  consent,  hath  much  more,  and  for  much  more  reason,  alarmed  the 
British  ?ubiects  in  America  than  anything  that  had  ever  been  done 


1 2  A  ME  R  1C.  1  .V  PA  TRIO  7'SSJf. 

before.  These  resolutions  have  been  since  carried  into  execution  by 
an  act  of  parliament  which  the  colonies  do  conceive  is  a  violation  of 
their  long-enjoyed  rights.  For  it  must  be  confessed  by  all  men  that 
they  who  are  taxed  at  pleasure  by  others  cannot  possibly  have  any 
property,  can  have  nothing  to  be  called  their  own  ;  they  who  have  no 
property  can  have  no  freedom,  but  are  indeed  reduced  to  the  most 
abject  slavery  ;  are  in  a  state  far  worse  than  countries  conquered  and 
made  tributary,  for  ;hcse  have  only  a  fixed  sum  to  pay,  which  they  are 
left  to  raise  among  themselves  in  the  way  that  they  may  think  most 
equal  and  easy,  and  having  paid  the  stipulated  sum  the  debt  is  dis 
charged  and  what  is  left  is  their  own.  This  is  more  tolerable  than  to 
be  taxed  at  the  will  of  others,  without  any  bounds,  without,  any  stipu 
lations  or  agreements,  contrary  to  their  consent  and  against  their 
wills.  If  we  arc  told  that  those  who  lay  taxes  upon  the  colonies  are 
men  of  the  highest  character  for  wisdom,  justice,  and  integrity,  and 
therefore  cannot  be  supposed  to  deal  hardly,  unjustly,  or  unequally 
by  any;  admitting  and  really  believing  that  all  this 'is  true,  it  will 
make  no  alteration  in  the  case;  for  one  who  is  bound  to  obey  the  will 
of  another  is  as  really  a  slave,  though  he  may  have  a  good  master, 
as  if  he  had  a  bad  one  ;  and  this  is  stronger  in  politic  bodies  than  in 
natural  ones,  as  the  former  have  a  perpetual  succession,  and  remain 
the  same  ;  and  although  they  may  have  a  good  master  at  one  time, 
they  may  have  a  very  bad  one  at  another.  And  indeed,  if  the  people 
in  America  are  to  be  taxed  by  the  representatives  of  the  people  in 
Britain,  their  malady  is  an  increasing  evil  that  must  always  •  grov/ 
greater  by  time.  Whatever  burdens  are  laid  upon  the  Americans  will 
be  that  much  taken  off  the  Britons  ;  and  the  doing  this  will  soon  be 
extremely  popular,  and  those  who  are  put  up  to  be  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons  must  obtain  the  votes  of  the  people  by  promising 
to  take  taxes  off  them  by  making  new  levies  on  the  Americans.  This 
must  most  assuredly  be  the  case,  and  it  will  not  be  in  the  power  even 
of  the  Parliament  to  prevent  it  ;  the  people's  private  interest  will  be 
concerned,  and  will  govern  them  ;  they  will  have  such  and  only  such 
representatives  as  will  act  agreeably  to  their  interest  ;  and  these  taxes 
laid  on  Americans  will  be  always  a  part  of  the  supply  bill  in  which 
the  other  branches  of  the  legislature  can  make  no  alteration  :  and  in 
truth,  the  subjects  in  the  colonies  will  be  taxed  at  the  will  and  pleasure 
of  their  fellow-subjects  in  Britain.  How  equitable  and  how  just  this 
may  be,  must  be  left  to  every  impartial  man  to  determine. 

But  it  will  be  said,  that  the  moneys  drawn  from  the  colonies  by 
duties  and  by  taxes  will  be  laid  up  and  set  apart  to  be  used  for  their 
future  defence.  This  will  not  at  all  alleviate  the  hardships,  but  serve 
only  the  more  strongly  to  mark  the  servile  state  of  the  people.  Free 
people  have  ever  thought,  and  will  think,  that  the  money  necessary  for 
their  defence  lies  safest  in  their  own  hands  until  it  be  wanted  im 
mediately  for  that  purpose.  To  take  the  monev  of  the  Americans, 


STEP  HEX   //CVYv'AV.y.  13 

which  they  want  continually  to  use  in  their  trade,  and  lay  it  up  for 
their  defence  at  a  thousand  leagues'  distance  from  them,  when  the 
enemies  they  have  to  fear  are  in  their  own  neighborhood,  hath  not 
the  greatest  probability  of  friendship  or  of  prudence. 

It  is  not  the  judgment  of  free  people  only  that  money  for  defence 
is  safest  in  their  keeping,  but  it  is  also  the  opinion  of  the  best  and 
wisest  kings  and  governors  of  mankind  in  every  age  of  the  world 
that  the  wealth  of  a  state  was  most  securely  as  well  as  most  profitably 
deposited  in  the  hands  of  their  faithful  subjects.  Constantius,  em 
peror  of  the  Romans,  though  an  absolute  prince,  both  practised  and 
praised  this  method. 

"  Diocletian  sent  persons  on  purpose  to  reproach  him  with  his  ne 
glect  of  the  public,  and  the  poverty  to  which  he  was  reduced  by  his 
own  fault.  Constantius  heard  these  reproaches  with  patience  ;  and 
having  persuaded  those  who  made  them  in  Diocletian's  name  to 
stay  a  few  days  with  him,  he  sent  word  to  the  most  wealthy  persons 
in  the  province,  that  he  wanted  money,  and  that  they  had  now  an 
opportunity  of  showing  whether  or  not  they  really  loved  their  prince. 
Upon  this  notice,  every  one  strove  who  should  be  foremost  in  carry 
ing  to  the  exchequer  all  their  gold,  silver  and  valuable  effects,  so  that 
in  a  short  time  Constantius  from  being  the  poorest  became  by  far  the 
most  wealthy  of  all  the  four  princes.  He  then  invited  the  deputies  of 
Diocletian  to  visit  his  treasury,  desiring  them  to  make  a  faithful  report 
to  their  master  of  the  state  in  which  they  should  find  it.  They  obeyed, 
and  while  they  stood  gazing  upon  the  mighty  heaps  of  gold  and  silver, 
Constantius  told  them  that  the  wealth  which  they  beheld  with  aston 
ishment  had  long  since  belonged  to  him  but  that  he  had  left  it  by 
way  of  deposition,  in  the  hands  of  his  people,  adding  that  the  richest 
and  surest  treasure  of  the  prince  was  the  love  of  his  subjects.  The 
deputies  were  no  sooner  gone  than  the  generous  prince  sent  for  those 
who  had  assisted  him  in  his  exigency,  commended  their  zeal  and  re- 
returned  to  every  one  what  they  had  so  readily  brought  into  his 
treasury." 

\Ve  are  not  insensible  that  when  liberty  is  in  danger  the  liberty  of 
complaining  is  dangerous  ;  yet  a  man  on  a  wreck  was  never  denied 
the  liberty  of  roaring  as  loud  as  he  could,  says  Dean  Swift.  And  we 
believe  no  good  reason  can  be  given  why  the  colonies  should  not  mod 
estly  and  soberly  inquire,  what  right  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain 
have  to  tax  them.  We  know  that  such  inquiries  have  by  one  letter- 
writer  been  branded  with  the  little  epithet  of  "  Mushroom  Policy," 
and  he  intimates  that  if  the  colonies  pretend  to  claim  any  privileges, 
they  will  draw  down  the  resentment  of  the  Parliament  on  them.  Is 
then  the  defence  of  liberty  so  contemptible,  and  pleading  for  just 
rights  so  dangerous  ?  Can  the  guardians  of  liberty  be  thus  ludicrous  ? 
Can  the  patrons  of  freedom  be  so  jealous  and  so  severe  ? 

Should  it  be  urged  that  the  money  expended  by  the  mother  country 


14  A  MKR  /( \-l  &  / '.  /  7  7vV6>  TISM. 

for  the  defence  and  protection  of  America,  and  especially  during  the 
late  war,  must  justly  entitle  her  to  some  retaliation  from  the  colonies, 
and  that  the  stamp  duties  and  taxes  intended  to  be  raised  in  them  are 
only  designed  for  that  equitable  purpose;  if  we  are  permitted  to 
examine  how  far  this  may  rightfully  vest  the  Parliament  with  the 
power  of  taxing  the  colonies,  we  shall  find  this  claim  to  have  no 
foundation.  In  many  of  the  colonies,  especially  those  in  New  Eng 
land,  which  were  planted,  as  is  before  observed,  not  at  the  charge  of 
the  Crown  or  kingdom  of  England,  but  at  the  expense  of  the  planters 
themselves,  and  were  not  only  planted,  but  also  defended  against  the 
savages  and  other  enemies  in  long  and  cruel  wars  which  continued  for 
an  hundred  years,  almost  without  intermission,  solely  at  their  own 
charge;  and  in  the  year  1746,  when  the  Duke  d'Anville  came  out  from 
France  with  the  most  formidable  fleet  that  ever  was  in  the  American 
seas,  enraged  at  these  colonies  for  the  loss  of  Louisburg  the  year 
before,  and  with  orders  to  make  an  attack  on  them;  even  in  this 
greatest  exigence  these  colonies  were  left  to  the  protection  of  heaven 
and  their  own  efforts.  These  colonies  having  thus  planted  themselves 
and  removed  all  enemies  from  their  borders,  were  in  hopes  to  enjoy 
peace  and  recruit  their  state,  much  exhausted  by  these  long  struggles; 
but  they  were  soon  called  upon  to  raise  men  and  send  them  out  to  the 
defence  of  other  colonies,  and  to  make  conquests  for  the  Crown;  they 
dutifully  obeyed  the  requisition,  and  with  ardor  entered  into  these  ser 
vices  and  continued  in  them  until  all  encroachments  were  removed,  and 
all  Canada,  and  even  the  Ha /ana  conquered.  They  most  cheerfully 
complied  with  every  call  of  the  Crown;  they  rejoiced,  yea  even  exulted, 
in  the  prosperity  of  the  British  empire.  But  these  colonies  whose 
bounds  we  fixed,  and  whose  borders  wrere  before  cleared  of  enemies  by 
their  own  fortitude,  and  at  their  own  expense,  reaped  no  sort  of 
advantage  by  these  conquests;  they  are  not  enlarged,  have  not  gained 
a  single  acre,  have  no  part  in  the  Indian  or  interior  trade;  the 
immense  tracts  of  land  subdued,  and  no  less  immense  and  profitable 
commerce  acquired,  all  belong  to  Great  Britain,  and  not  the  least  share 
or  portion  to  these  colonies,  though  thousands  of  their  numbers  have 
lost  their  lives,  and  millions  of  their  money  have  been  expended  in  the 
purchase  of  them — for  great  part  of  which  we  are  yet  in  debt — and  from 
which  we  shall  not  in  many  years  be  able  to  extricate  ourselves.  Hard 
will  be  the  fate,  cruel  the  destiny  of  these  unhappy  colonies,  if  the 
reward  they  are  to  receive  for  all  this  is  the  loss  of  their  freedom; 
better  for  them  Canada  still  remained  French,  yea,  far  more  eligible 
that  it  should  remain  so,  than  that  the  price  of  its  reduction  should  be 
their  slavery. 

If  the  colonies  are  not  taxed  by  ParPament  are  they  therefore  ex 
empt  from  bearing  their  proper  shares  in  the  necessary  burdens  of 
government?  This  by  no  means  follows.  Do  they  not  support  a 
regular  internal  government  in  each  colony  as  expensive  to  the  peo- 


STEP II EX  HOPKINS.  1 5 

pie  here,  as  the  internal  government  of  Britain  is  to  the  people 
there?  Have  not  the  colonies  here  at  all  times,  when  called  upon  by 
the  Cro-.vn  to  raise  money  for  the  public  service,  done  it  as  cheerfully 
a.>  the  Parliament  have  done  on  the  like  occasions?  Is  not  this  the 
most  easy  way  of  raising  money  in  the  colonies?  What  occasion  then 
to  distrust  the  colonies,  what  necessity  to  fall  on  the  present  mode  to 
compel  them  to  do  what  they  have  ever  done  freely?  Are  not  the 
people  in  the  colonies  as  loyal  and  dutiful  subjects  as  any  age  or  nation 
ever  produced,  and  are  they  not  as  useful  to  the  kingdom  in  this 
remote  quarter  of  the  world  as  their  fellow-subjects  are  in  Britain? 
The  Parliament,  it  is  confessed,  have  power  to  regulate  the  trade  of 
the  whole  empire:  and  hath  it  not  full  power  by  this  means  to  draw 
all  the  money  and  wealth  of  the  colonies  into  the  mother  country  at 
pleasure?  What  motive,  after  all  this,  can  remain  to  induce  the 
Parliament  to  abridge  the  privileges  and  lessen  the  rights  of  the  most 
loyal  and  dutiful  subjects;  subjects  justly  entitled  to  ample  freedom, 
who  have  long  enjoyed  and  not  abused  or  forfeited  their  liberties,  who 
have  used  them  to  their  own  advantage,  in  dutiful  subserviency  to  the 
orders  and  the  interests  of  Great  Britain?  Why  should  the  gentle 
current  of  tranquillity,  that  has  so  long  run  with  peace  through  all  the 
British  States,  and  flowed  with  joy  and  happiness  in  all  her  countries, 
be  at  last  obstructed  and  turned  out  of  its  true  course  into  unusual  and 
winding  channels,  by  which  many  of  these  colonies  must  be  ruined; 
but  none  of  them  can  possibly  be  made  more  rich  or  more  happy. 

Before  we  conclude,  it  may  be  necessary  to  take  notice  of  the  vast 
difference  there  is  between  the  raising  money  in  a  country  by  duties, 
taxes,  or  -otherwise,  and  employing  and  laying  out  the  money  again 
in  the  same  country;  and  raising  the  like  sums  of  money  by  the  like 
means  and  sending  it  away  quite  out  of  the  country  where  it  is  raised. 
Where  the  former  of  these  is  the  case,  although  the  sums  raised  may 
be  very  great,  yet  that  country  may  support  itself  under  them;  for  as 
fast  as  the  money  is  collected  together  it  is  scattered  abroad,  to  be 
used  in  commerce  and  every  kind  of  business;  and  money  is  not  made 
scarcer  by  this  means,  but  rather  the  contrary,  as  this  continual  circu 
lation  must  have  a  tendency  in  some  degree  to  prevent  its  being 
hoarded.  But  where  the  latter  method  is  pursued  the  effect  will  be  . 
extremely  different;  for  here,  as  fast  as  the  money  can  be  collected  it 
is  immediately  sent  out  of  the  country,  never  to  return  but  by  a  te 
dious  round  of  commerce,  which  at  best  must  take  up  some  time; 
here  all  trade  and  every  kind  of  business  depending  upon  it  will  grow 
dull  and  must  languish  more  and  more,  until  it  comes  to  a  final  stop  at 
last.  If  the  money  raised  in  Great  Britain  in  the  three  last  years  of  the 
war,  and  which  exceeded  forty  millions  sterling,  had  been  sent  out  of 
the  kingdom,  would  not  this  have  nearly  ruined  the  trade  of  the  nation 
in  three  years  only?  Think  (hen  what  must  be  th-:  condition  of  these 
miserable  colonies  when  all  the  money  proposed  to  be  raised  in  them 


i6  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM, 

by  high  duties  on  the  importation  of  divers  kinds  of  goods  by  the  post- 
office,  by  stamp  duties,  and  other  taxes,  is  sent  way  quite  as  fast  as  it 
can  be  collected;  and  this  is  to  be  repeated  continually  !  Is  it  possible 
for  the  colonies  under  these  circumstances  to  support  themselves,  to 
have  any  money,  any  trade,  or  other  business  carried  on  in  them? 
Certainly  not;  nor  is  there  at  present,  or  ever  was,  any  country  under 
heaven  that  did  or  possibly  could  support  itself  under  such  burdens. 

We  finally  beg  leave  to  assert  that  the  first  planters  of  these 
colonies  were  pious  Christians,  were  faithful  subjects;  who,  with  a 
fortitude  and  perseverance  little  known  and  less  considered,  settled 
these  wild  countries,  by  God's  goodness  and  their  own  amazing  labors, 
thereby  adding  a  most  valuable  dependance  to  the  Crown  of  Great 
Britain;  were  ever  dutifully  subservient  to  her  interests;  they  so 
taught  their  children  that  not  one  has  been  disaffected  to  this  day,  and 
all  have  honestly  obeyed  every  royal  command  and  cheerfully  sub 
mitted  to  every  constitutional  law.  They  have  as  little  inclination  as 
they  have  ability  to  throw  off  their  dependency;  they  have  most  care 
fully  avoided  every  measure  that  might  be  offensive,  and  all  such 
manufactures  as  were  interdicted.  Besides  all  this,  they  have  risked 
their  lives  when  they  have  been  ordered,  and  furnished  money  when 
ever  it  has  been  called  for ;  have  never  been  either  troublesome  or 
expensive  to  the  mother  country  ;  have  kept  all  due  order,  and  have 
supported  a  regular  government  ;  they  have  maintained  peace,  and 
practised  Christianity.  And  in  all  conditions,  upon  all  occasions,  they 
have  always  demeaned  themselves  as  loyal,  as  dutiful  subjects  ought  to 
do;  and  no  kingdom  or  state  or  empire  hath,  or  ever  had,  colonies  more 
obedient,  more  serviceable,  more  profitable  than  these  have  ever  been. 

May  the  same  Divine  Goodness  that  guided  the  first  planters,  that 
protected  the  settlements,  and  inspired  kings  to  be  gracious,  parlia 
ments  to  be  tender,  ever  preserve,  ever  protect,  and  support  our 
present  most  gracious  King;  give  grea>.  wisdom  to  his  ministers  and 
much  understanding  to  his  parliament;  perpetuate  the  sovereignty  of 
the  British  Constitution,  and  the  filial  dependancy  of  all  the  colonies. 


CAUSES   OF   AMERICAN   DISCONTENT. 
BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN. 

Philadelphia,  January  7,  1768. 

SIR: — As  the  cause  of  the  present  ill-humor  in  America,  and  of  the 
resolutions  taken  there  to  purchase  less  of  our  manufactures,  does  not 
seem  to  be  generally  understood,  it  may  afford  some  satisfaction  to 


BEXJA  MIX  FRA  .YA'LLV.  1 7 

your  readers  if  you  give  them  the  following  short  historical  state  ot 
facts. 

From  the  time  that  the  colonies  were  first  considered  as  capable  of 
granting  aids  to  the  crown,  down  to  the  end  of  the  last  war,  it  is  said 
that  the  constant  mode  of  obtaining  those  aids  was  by  requisition  made 
from  the  crown,  through  its  governors,  to  the  several  Assemblies,  in 
circular  letters  from  the  Secretary  of  State,  in  his  Majesty's  name, 
setting  forth  the  occasion,  requiring  them  to  take  the  matter  into  con 
sideration,  and  expressing  a  reliance  on  their  prudence,  duty,  and 
affection  to  his  Majesty's  government,  that  they  would  grant  such 
sums,  or  raise  such  numbers  of  men,  as  were  suitable  to  their  respec 
tive  circumstances. 

The  colonies,  being  accustomed  to  this  method,  have  from  time  to 
time  granted  money  to  the  crown,  or  raised  troops  for  its  service,  in 
proportion  to  their  abilities  ;  and  during  all  the  last  war  beyond  their 
abilities,  so  that  considerable  sums  were  returned  them  yearly  by  Par 
liament,  as  the:y  had  exceeded  their  proportion. 

Had  this  happy  method  of  requisition  been  continued  (a  method 
that  left  the  King's  subjects  in  those  remote  countries  the  pleasure  of 
showing  their  zeal  and  loyalty,  and  of  imagining  that  they  recom 
mended  themselves  to  tl.eir  sovereign  by  the  liberality  of  their  volun 
tary  grants),  there  is  no  doubt  but  all  the  money  that  could  reasonably 
be  expected  to  be  raised  from  them  in  any  manner  might  have  been 
obtained  without  the  least  heart-burning,  offence,  or  breach  of  the 
harmony  of  affections  and  interests  that  so  long  subsisted  between  the 
two  countries. 

It  has  been  thought  wisdom  in  a  government  exercising  sovereignty 
over  different  kinds  of  people,  to  have  some  regard  to  prevailing  and 
established  opinions  among  the  people  to  be  governed,  wherever  such 
opinions  might,  in  their  effects,  obstruct  or  promote  public  measures. 
If  they  tend  to  obstruct  public  service  they  are  to  be  changed,  if  pos 
sible,  before  we  attempt  to  act  against  them;  and  they  can  be  changed 
only  by  reason  and  persuasion.  But,  if  public  business  can  be  car 
ried  on  without  thwarting  those  opinions,  if  they  can  be,  on  the  con 
trary,  made  subservient  to  it,  they  are  not  unnecessarily  to  be 
thwarted,  however  absurd  such  popular  opinions  may  be  in  their 
nature. 

This  had  been  the  wisdom  of  our  government  with  respect  to  raising 
money  in  the  colonies.  It  was  well  known  that  the  colonists  univer 
sally  wece  of  opinion  thai  no  money  could  be  levied  from  English 
subjects  but  by  their  own  consent,  given  by  themselves  or  their 
chosen  representatives;  that,  therefore,  whatever  money  was  to  be 
raised  from  the  people  in  the  colonies  must  first  be  granted  by  their 
Assemblies,  as  the  money  raised  in  Britain  is  first  to  be  granted  by 
the  House  of  Commons;  that  this  right  of  granting  their  own  money 
was  essential  to  English  liberty;  and  that,  if  any  man,  or  body  of  men, 


1 8  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

in  which  they  had  no  representative  of  their  choosing,  could  tax  them 
at  pleasure,  they  could  not  be  said  to  have  any  property,  anything 
they  could  call  their  own.  But,  as  these  opinions  did  not  hinder  their 
granting  money  voluntarily  and  amply,  whenever  the  crown  by  its 
servants  came  into  their  Assemblies  (as  it  does  into  its  Parliaments  of 
Britain  and  Ireland),  and  demanded  aids,  therefore  that  method  was 
chosen,  rather  than  the  hateful  one  of  arbitrary  taxes. 

I  do  not  undertake  here  to  support  these  opinions  of  the  Americans; 
they  have  been  refuted  by  a  late  act  of  Parliament,  declaring  its  own 
power ;  which  very  Parliament,  however,  showed  wisely  so  much 
tender  regard  to  those  inveterate  prejudices  as  to  repeal  a  tax  that 
had  militated  against  them.  And  those  prejudices  are  still  so  fixed  and 
rooted  in  the  Americans,  that  it  has  been  supposed  not  a  single  man 
among  them  has  been  convinced  of  his  error,  even  by  that  act  of  Par 
liament. 

The  person,  then,  who  first  projected  to  lay  aside  the  accustomed 
method  of  requisition,  and  to  raise  money  in  America  by  stamps,  seems 
not  to  have  acted  wisely  in  deviating  from,  that  method  (which  the 
colonists  looked  upon  as  constitutional),  and  thwarting  unnecessarily 
the  fixed  prejudices  of  so  great  a  number  of  the  King's  subjects.  It 
was  not,  however,  for  want  of  knowledge  that  what  he  was  about  to 
do  would  give  them  offence  ;  he  appears  to  have  been  very  sensible  of 
this,  and  apprehensive  that  it  might  occasion  some  disorders;  to  pre 
vent  or  suppress  which  he  projected  another  bill,  that  wyas  brought  in 
the  same  session  with  the  Stamp  Act,  whereby  it  was  to  be  made  lawful 
for  military  officers  in  the  colonies  to  quarter  their  soldiers  in  private 
houses. 

This  seemed  intended  to  awe  the  people  into  a  compliance  with  the 
other  act.  Great  opposition,  however,  being  raised  here  against  the 
bill  by  the  agents  from  the  colonies  and  the  merchants  trading  hither, 
(the  colonists  declaring,  that,  under  such  a  power  in  the  army  no  one 
could  look  on  his  house  as  his  own,  or  think  he  .had  a  home,  when 
soldiers  might  be  thrust  into  it  and  mixed  with  his  family  at  the 
pleasure  of  an  officer),  that  part  of  the  bill  was  dropped;  but  there  still 
remained  a  clause,  when  it  passed  into  a  law,  to  oblige  the  several 
Assemblies  to  provide  quarters  for  the  soldiers,  furnishing  them  with 
firing,  bedding,  candles,  small  beer  or  rum,  and  sundry  other  articles, 
at  the  expense  of  the  several  provinces.  And  this  act  continued  in 
force  when  the  Stamp  Act  was  repealed  ;  though,  if  obligatory  on  the 
Assemblies,  it  equally  militated  against  the  American  principle  above 
mentioned,  that  money  is  not  to  be  raised  on  English  subjects  without 
their  consent. 

The  colonies  nevertheless,  being  put  into  high  good-humor  by  the 
repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  chose  to  avoid  a  fresh  dispute  upon  the 
other,  it  being  temporary  and  soon  to  expire,  never,  as  they  hoped, 
to  revive  again  ,  and  in  the  meantime  they,  by  various  ways,  iu 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN.  19 

different  colonies,  provided  for  the  quartering  of  the  troops  ;  either  by 
acts  of  their  own  Assemblies,  without  taking  notice  of  'the  act  of  Par 
liament,  or  by  some  variety  or  small  diminution,  as  of  salt  and 
vinegar,  in  the  supplies  required  by  the  act  ;  that  what  they  did  might 
appear  a  voluntary  act  of  their  own,  and  not  done  in  due  obedience  to 
an  act  of  Parliament,  which,  according  to  their  ideas  of  their  rights, 
they  thought  hard  to  obey. 

It  might  have  been  well  if  the  matter  had  then  passed  without  no 
tice  ;  but,  a  governor  having  written  home  an  angry  and  aggravating 
letter  upon  this  conduct  in  the  Assembly  of  his  province,  the  outed 
proposer  of  the  Stamp  Act  and  his  adherents,  then  in  the  opposition, 
raised  such  a  clamor  against  America  as  being  in  rebellion,  and 
against  those  who  had  been  for  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  as  having 
thereby  been  encouragers  of  this  supposed  rebellion,  that  it  was 
thought  necessary  to  enforce  the  quartering  act  by  another  act  of 
Parliament,  taking  away  from  the  province  of  New  York,  which  had 
been  the  most  explicit  in  its  refusal,  ail  the  powers  of  legislation,  till 
it  should  have  complied  with  that  act.  The  news  of  which  greatly 
alarmed  the  people  everywhere  in  America,  as  (it  had  been  said)  the 
language  of  such  an  act  seemed  to  them  to  be  :  Obey  implicitly  laws 
made  by  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  to  raise  money  on  you  with 
out  your  consent,  or  you  shall  enjoy  no  rights  or  privileges  at  all. 

At  the  same  time  a  person  lately  in  high  office  projected  the  levy 
ing  more  money  from  America,  by  new  duties  on  various  articles  of 
our  own  manufacture,  as  glass,  paper,  painters'  colors,  etc.,  appoint 
ing  a  new  Board  of  Customs,  and  sending  over  a  set  of  commission 
ers,  with  large  salaries,  to  be  established  at  Boston,  who  were  to  have 
the  care  of  collecting  those  duties,  which  were  by  the  act  expressly 
mentioned  to  be  intended  for  the  payment  of  the  salaries  of  governors, 
judges,  and  other  officers  of  the  Crown  in  America,  it  being  a  pretty 
general  opinion  here  that  those  officers  ought  not  to  depend  on  the 
people  there  for  any  part  of  their  support. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  combat  this  opinion.  But  perhaps  it  may 
be  some  satisfaction  to  your  readers  to  know  what  ideas  the  Americans 
have  on  the  subject.  They  say  then,  as  to  governors,  that  they  are 
not  like  princes,  whose  posterity  have  an  inheritance  in  the  govern 
ment  of  the  nation  and  therefore  an  interest  in  its  prosperity.  They 
are  generally  strangers  to  the  provinces  they  are  sent  to  govern. 
They  have  no  estate,  natural  connection,  or  relation  there  to  give 
them  an  affection  for  the  country  ;  that  they  come  only  to  make 
money  as  fast  as  they  can  ;  are  sometimes  men  of  vicious  character 
and  broken  fortunes,  sent  by  a  minister  merely  to  get  them  out  of  the 
way  ;  that  as  they  intend  staying  in  the  country  no  longer  than  their 
government  continues,  and  purpose  to  leave  no  family  behind  them, 
they  are  apt  to  be  regardless  of  the  good  will  of  the  people,  and  care 
not  what  is  said  or  thought  of  them  after  they  are  gone. 


20  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

Their  situation,  at  the  same  time,  gives  them  many  opportunities  of 
being  vexatious,  and  they  are  often  so,  notwithstanding  their  depend 
ence  on  the  Assemblies  for  all  that  part  of  their  support  that  does  not 
arise  from  fees  established  by  law,  but  would  probably  be  much  more 
so  if  they  were  to  be  supported  by  money  drawn  from  the  people  with 
out  their  consent  or  good  will,  which  is  the  professed  design  of  the 
new  act.  That  if  by  means  of  these  forced  duties  government  is  to 
be  supported  in  America  without  the  intervention  of  the  Assemblies, 
their  Assemblies  will  soon  be  looked  upon  as  useless,  and  a  governor 
will  not  call  them,  as  having  nothing  to  hope  from  their  meeting  and 
perhaps  something  to  fear  from  their  inquiries  into  and  remonstrances 
against  his  maladministration.  That  urns  the  people  will  be  deprived 
of  their  most  essential  rights.  That  it  being,  as  at  present,  a  govern 
or's  interest  to  cultivate  the  good  will  by  promoting  the  welfare  of  the 
people  he  governs,  can  be  attended  with  no  prejudice  to  the  mother 
country,  since  all  the  laws  he  may  be  prevailed  on  to  give  his  assent 
to  are  subject  to  revision  here,  and  if  reported  against  by  the  Board  of 
Trade  are  immediately  repealed  by  the  Crown  ;  nor  dare  he  pass  any 
law  contrary  to  his  instructions,  as  he  holds  his  office  during  the 
pleasure  of  the  Crown,  and  his  securities  are  liable  for  the  penalties  of 
their  bonds  if  he  contravenes  those  instructions.  This  is  what  they 
say  as  to  governors. 

As  to  judges,  they  allege  that,  being  appointed  from  this  country, 
and  holding  their  commissions  not  during  good  behavior,  as  in  Britain, 
but  during  pleasure,  all  the  weight  of  interest  or  influence  would  be 
thrown  into  one  of  the  scales  (which  ought  to  be  held  even),  if  the 
salaries  are  also  to  be  paid  out  of  duties  raised  upon  the  people  with 
out  their  consent,  and  independent  of  their  Assemblies'  approbation 
or  disapprobation  of  the  judge's  behavior.  That  it  is  true  judges 
should  be  free  from  all  influence  ;  and,  therefore,  whenever  govern 
ment  here  will  grant  commissions  to  able  and  honest  judges  during 
gocd  behavior,  the  Assemblies  will  settle  permanent  and  ample  sala 
ries  on  them  during  their  commissions  ;  but  at  present  they  have  no 
other  means  of  getting  rid  of  an  ignorant  or  unjust  judge  (and  some 
of  scandalous  characters  have,  they  say,  been  sometimes  sent  them], 
left  but  by  starving  them  out. 

I  do  not  suppose  these  reasonings  of  theirs  will  appear  here  to 
have  rmch  weight  I  do  not  produce  them  with  an  expectation  of 
convincing  your  readers.  I  relate  them  merely  in  pursuance  of  the 
task  I  have  imposed  on  myself — to  be  an  impartial  historian  of  Ameri 
can  facts  and  opinions 

The  colonists  being  thus  greatly  alarmed,  as  I  said  before,  by  the 
revvs  of  the  act  for  abolishing  the  Legislature  of  New  York  and  the 
imposition  of  these  new  duties,  professedly  for  such  disagreeable  pur 
poses  (accompanied  by  a  new  set  of  revenue  officers  with  large  ap 
pointments,  which  gave  strong  suspicions  that  more  business  of  the 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN,  2t 

same  kind  was  soon  to  be  provided  for  them,  that  they  might  earn  their 
salaries),  began  seriously  to  consider  their  situation,  and  to  revolve 
afresh  in  their  minds  grievances  which  from  their  respect  and  love  for 
this  country  they  had  long  borne,  and  seemed  almost  willing  to  forget. 

They  reflected  how  lightly  the  interest  of  all  America  had  been  es 
timated  here,  when  the  interests  of  a  few  of  the  inhabitants  of  Great 
Britain  happened  to  have  the  smallest  competition  with  it.  •  That  the 
whole  American  people  was  forbidden  the  advantage  of  a  direct  im 
portation  of  wine,  oil  and  fruit  from  Portugal,  but  must  take  them 
loaded  with  all  the  expense  of  a  voyage  one  thousand  leagues  round 
about,  being  to  be  landed  first  in  England,  to  be  reshipped  for  Amer 
ica,  expenses  amounting,  in  war  time  at  least,  to  thirty  pounds  per 
cent  more  than  otherwise  they  would  have  been  charged  with  ;  and 
all  this  merely  that  a  few  Portugal  merchants  in  London  may  gain  a 
commission  on  those  goods  passing  through  their  hands  (Portugal 
merchants,  by  the  by,  that  can  complain  loudly  of  the  smallest  hard 
ships  laid  on  their  trade  by  foreigners,  and  yet  even  in  the  last  year 
could  oppose  with  all  their  influence  the  giving  ease  to  their  fellow- 
subjects  laboring  under  so  heavy  an  oppression!)  That  on  a  slight 
complaint  of  a  few  Virginia  merchants  nine  colonies  had  been  re 
strained  from  making  paper  money,  become  absolutely  necessary  to 
their  internal  commerce,  from  the  constant  remittance  of  their  gold 
and  silver  to  Britain. 

But  not  only  the  interest  of  a  particular  body  of  merchants,  but  the 
interest  of  any  small  body  of  British  tradesmen  or  artificers,  has  been 
found,  they  say,  to  outweigh  that  of  all  the  King's  subjects  in  the 
Colonies.  There  cannot  be  a  stronger  natural  right  than  that  of  a 
man's  making  the  best  profit  he  can  of  the  natural  produce  of  his 
lands,  provided  he  does  not  thereby  hurt  the  State  in  general.  Iron 
is  to  be  found  everywhere  in  America,  and  the  beaver  furs  are  the 
natural  produce  of  that  country.  Hats  and  nails  and  steel  are  wanted 
there  as  well  as  here.  It  is  of  no  importance  to  the  common  welfare 
of  the  empire  whether  a  subject  of  the  King's  obtains  his  living  by 
making  hats  on  this  or  that  side  of  the  water.  Yet  the  hatters  of 
England  have  prevailed  to  obtain  an  act  in  their  own  favor,  restraining 
that  manufacture  in  America,  in  order  to  oblige  the  Americans  to  send 
their  beaver  to  England  to  be  manufactured,  and  purchase  back  the 
hats,  loaded  with  the  charges  of  a  double  transportation. 

In  the  same  manner  have  a  few  nail-makers,  and  a  still  smaller  body 
of  steel-makers  (perhaps  there  are  not  a  half  a  dozen  of  these  in  Eng 
land),  prevailed  totally  to  forbid  by  an  act  of  Parliament  the  erecting 
of  slitting-mills,  or  steel  furnaces,  in  America;  that  the  Americans  may 
be  obliged  to  take  all  their  nails  for  their  buildings,  and  steel  for  their 
tools,  from  these  artificers,  under  the  same  disadvantages. 

Added  to  these,  the  Americans  remembered  the  act  authorizing  the 
most  cruel  insult  that  perhaps  was  ever  offered  to  one  people  by 


22  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

another,  that  of  emptying  our  jaifs  into  their  settlements;  Scotland, 
too,  having  within  these  two  years  obtained  the  privilege  it  had  not 
before,  of  sending  its  rogues  and  villains  also  to  the  plantations.  I 
say,  reflecting  on  these  things,  they  said  one  to  another  (their  news 
papers  are  full  of  such  discourses):  "These  people  are  not  content 
with  making  a  monopoly  of  us,  forbidding  us  to  trade  with  any  other 
country  of  Europe,  and  compelling  us  to  buy  everything  of  them, 
though  in  many  articles  we  could  furnish  ourselves  ten,  twenty,  and 
even  fifty  per  cent,  cheaper  elsewhere  ;  but  now  they  have  as  good  as 
declared  they  have  a  right  to  tax  us  ad  libitum  internally  and  exter 
nally;  and  that  our  constitutions  and  liberties  shall  all  be  taken  away 
if  we  do  not  submit  to  that  claim. 

"  They  are  not  content  with  the  high  prices  at  which  they  sell  us 
their  goods,  but  have  now  begun  to  enhance  those  prices  by  new 
duties;  and,  by  the  expensive  apparatus  of  a  new  set  of  officers  appear 
to  intend  a  new  augmentation  and  multiplication  of  those  burdens  that 
shall  still '  be  more  grievous  to  us.  Our  people  have  been  foolishly 
fond  of  their  superfluous  modes  and  manufactures,  to  the  impoverish 
ing  our  own  country,  carrying  off  all  our  cash,  and  loading  us  with 
debt ;  they  will  not  suffer  us  to  restrain  the  luxury  of  our  inhabitants 
as  they  do  that  of  their  own,  by  laws  ;  they  can  make  laws  to  dis 
courage  or  prohibit  the  importation  of  French  superfluities,  but  though 
those  of  England  are  as  ruinous  to  us  as  the  French  ones  arc  to  them, 
if  we  make  a  law  of  that  kind  they  immediately  repeal  it. 

"Thus  they  get  all  our  money  from  us  by  trade;  and  every  profit 
we  can  anywhere  make  by  our  fisheries,  our  produce,  or  our  com 
merce,  centres  finally  with  them;  but  this  does  not  signify.  It  is  time, 
then,  to  take  care  of  ourselves  by  the  best  means  in  our  power.  Let 
us  unite  in  solemn  resolution  and  engagements  with  and  to  each 
other,  that  we  will  give  these  new  officers  as  little  trouble  as  possible, 
by  not  consuming  the  British  manufactures  on  which  they  are  to  levy 
the  duties.  Let  us  agree  to  consume  no  more  of  their  expensive  gew 
gaws.  Let  us  live  frugally,  and  let  us  industriously  manufacture  what 
we  can  for  ourselves;  thus  we  shall  be  able  honorably  to  discharge 
the  debts  we  already  owe  them,  and  after  that  we  may  be  able  to  keep 
some  money  in  our  country,  not  only  for  the  uses  of  our  internal  com 
merce,  but  for  the  service  of  our  gracious  Sovereign,  whenever  he 
shall  have  occasion  for  it,  and  think  proper  to  require  it  of  us  in  the 
old  constitutional  manner.  For,  notwithstanding  the  reproaches 
thrown  out  against  us  in  their  public  papers  and  pamphlets,  notwith 
standing  we  have  been  reviled  in  their  Senate  as  rebels  and  traitors, 
we  are  truly  =a  loyal  people.  Scotland  has  had  its  rebellions,  and 
England  its  plots  against  the  present  royal  family;  but  America  is  iiu- 
tainted  ii>ith  those  crimes ;  there  is  in  it  scarce  a  man,  there  is  not  a 
single  native  of  our  country,  who  is  not  firmly  attached  to  his  King 
by  principle  and  by  affection. 


SAMUEL  ADAMS.  2$ 

"  But  a  new  kind  of  loyalty  seems  to  be  required  of  us — a  loyalty  to 
Parliament ;  a  loyalty  that  is  to  extend,  it  is  said,  to  a  surrender  of 
all  our  properties,  whenever  a  House  of  Commons,  in  which  there  is 
not  a  single  member  of  our  choosing,  shall  think  fit  to  grant  them 
away  without  our  consent;  and  to  a  patient  suffering  the  loss  of  our 
privileges  as  Englishmen,  if  we  cannot  submit  to  make  such  sur 
render.  We  were  separated  too  far  from  Britain  by  the  ocean,  but  we 
were  united  to  it  by  respect  and  love,  so  that  we  could  at  any  time 
freely  have  spent  our  lives  and  little  fortunes  in  its  cause;  but  this 
unhappy  new  system  of  politics  tends  to  dissolve  those  bands  of  union, 
and  to  sever  us  forever." 

These  are  the  wild  ravings  of  the,  at  present,  half  distracted  Amer 
icans.  To  be  sure,  no  reasonable  man  in  England  can  approve  of 
such  sentiments,  and,  as  I  said  before,  I  do  not  pretend  to  support  or 
justify  them;  but  I  sincerely  wish,  for  the  sake  of  the  manufactures 
and  commerce  of  Great  Britain,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  strength, 
which  a  firm  union  with  our  growing  colonies  would  give  us,  that 
these  people  had  never  been  thus  needlessly  driven  out  of  their  senses* 

I  am  yours,  etc.,  F.  S. 


TO  THE  SONS  OF  LIBERTY. 

SAMUEL  ADAMS. 
Boston,  March  18,  1769. 

DEARLY  BELOVED  :  Revolving  time  hath  brought  about  another 
anniversary  of  the  repeal  of  the  odious  Stamp  Act — an  act  framed  to 
divest  us  of  our  liberties  and  to  bring  us  to  slavery,  poverty,  and 
misery.  The  resolute  stand  made  by  the  Sons  of  Liberty  against  the 
detestable  policy  had  more  effect  in  bringing  on  the  repeal  than  any 
conviction  in  the  Parliament  in  Great  Britain  of  the  injustice  and 
iniquity  of  the  act.  It  was  repealed  from  principles  of  convenience  to 
Old  England,  and  accompanied  with  a  declaration  of  their  right  to 
tax  us;  and  since,  the  same  Parliament  have  passed  acts  which,  if 
obeyed  in  the  colonies,  will  be  equally  fatal. 

Although  the  people  of  Great  Britain  be  only  fellow-subjects,  they 
have  of  late  assumed  a  power  to  compel  us  to  buy  at  their  market 
such  things  as  we  want  of  European  produce  and  manufacture;  and 
at  the  same  time,  have  taxed  many  of  the  articles  for  the  express  pur 
pose  of  a  revenue;  and,  for  the  collection  of  the  duties  have  sent 
fleets,  armies,  commissioners,  guardacostas,  judges  of  admiralty,  and 
A.  P. -2. 


24  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

a  host  of  petty  officers,  whose  insolence  and  rapacity  are  become  in. 
tolerable.  Our  cities  are  garrisoned;  the  peace  and  order  which  here 
tofore  dignified  our  streets  are  exchanged  for  the  horrid  blasphemies 
and  outrage  of  soldiers;  our  trade  is  obstructed;  our  vessels  and 
cargoes,  the  effects  of  industry,  violently  seized;  and,  in  a  word,  every 
species  of  injustice  that  a  wicked  and  debauched  Ministry  could  in 
vent  is  practised  against  the  most  sober,  industrious,  and  loyal  peo 
ple  that  ever  lived  in  society.  The  joint  supplications  of  all  the 
colonies  have  been  rejected,  and  letters  and  mandates,  in  terms  of  the 
highest  affront  and  indignity,  have  been  transmitted  from  little  and 
insignificant  servants  of  the  Crown  to  his  Majesty's  grand  and  august 
sovereignties  in  America. 

These  things  being  so,  it  becomes  us,  my  brethren,  to  walk  worthy 
of  our  vocation,  to  use  every  lawful  means  to  frustrate  the  wicked 
designs  of  our  enemies  at  home  and  abroad,  and  to  unite  against  the 
evil  and  pernicious  machinations  of  those  who  would  destroy  us.  I 
judge  that  nothing  can  have  a  better  tendency  to  this  grand  end  than 
encouraging  our  own  manufactures,  and  a  total  disuse  of  foreign 
superfluities. 

When  I  consider  the  corruption  of  Great  Britain,  their  load  of  debt, 
their  intestine  divisions,  tumults  and  riots,  their  scarcity  of  pro 
visions,  and  the  contempt  in  which  they  are  held  by  the  nations  about 
them;  and  when  I  consider,  on  the  other  hand,  the  state  of  the  Ameri 
can  colonies  with  regard  to  the  various  climates,  soils,  produce,  rapid 
population,  joined  to  the  virtue  of  the  inhabitants,  I  cannot  but  think 
that  the  conduct  of  Old  England  towards  us  may  be  permitted  by  Divine 
wisdom,  and  ordained  by  the  unsearchable  providence  of  the  Al 
mighty,  for  hastening  a  period  dreadful  to  Great  Britain. 

"A  SON  OF  LIBERTY." 


LETTERS  FROM  "  FARMER."— LETTER  XII. 
JOHN  DICKINSON. 

Philadelphia^  February  15,  1768. 

MY  DEAR  COUNTRYMEN — Some  states  have  lost  their  liberty  by  par 
ticular  accidents  :  but  this  calamity  is  generally  owing  to  the  decay  of 
virtue.  A  people  is  travelling  fast  to  destruction,  when  individuals 
consider  their  interests  as  distinct  from  those  of  the  public.  Such  no 
tions  are  fatal  to  their  country,  and  to  themselves.  Yet  how  many 
are  there,  so  weak  and  sordid  as  to  think  they  perform  all  the  offices 


JOHN  DICKINSON.  25 

of  life,  if  they  earnestly  endeavour  to  encrease  their  own  wealth,  pow 
er,  and  credit,  without  the  least  regard  for  the  society,  under  the  pro 
tection  of  which  they  live  ;  who,  if  they  can  make  an  immediate  profit 
to  themselves,  by  lending  their  assistance  to  those,  whose  projects 
plainly  tend  to  the  injury  of  their  country,  rejoice  in  their  dexterity, 
and  believe  themselves  entitled  to  the  character  of  able  politicians. 
Miserable  men  !  of  whom  it  is  hard  to  say,  whether  they  ought  to  be 
most  the  objects  of  pity  or  contempt :  but  whose  opinions  are  cer 
tainly  as  detestable,  as  their  practices  are  destructive. 

Tho'  I  always  reflect,  with  a  high  pleasure,  on  the  integrity  and  un 
derstanding  of  my  countrymen;  which,  joined  with  a  pure  and  humble 
devotion  to  the  great  and  gracious  author  of  every  blessing  they  en 
joy,  will,  I  hope,  ensure  to  them,  and  their  posterity,  ail  temporal  and 
eternal  happiness  ;  yet  when  I  consider,  that  in  every  age  and  coun 
try  there  have  been  bad  men,  my  heart,  at  this  threatening  period, 
is  so  full  of  apprehension,  as  not  to  permit  me  to  believe,  but  that 
there  may  be  some  on  this  continent,  against  whom  you  ought  to  be 
upon  your  guard — men,  who  either  hold,  or  expect  to  hold  certain  advan 
tages,  by  setting  examples  of  servility  to  their  countrymen.  Men, 
who  trained  to  the  employment,  or  self  taught  by  a  natural  versatility 
of  genius,  serve  as  decoys  for  drawing  the  innocent  and  unwary  into 
snares.  It  is  not  to  be  doubted  but  that  such  men  will  diligently  be 
stir  themselves  on  this  and  every  like  occasion,  to  spread  the  infection 
of  their  meanness  as  far  as  they  can.  On  the  plans  they  have  adopted, 
this  is  their  course.  This  is  the  method  to  recommend  themselves  to 
their  patrons. 

From  them  we  shall  learn,  how  pleasant  and  profitable  a  thing  it  is, 
to  be  for  our  submissive  behavior  well  spoken  of  at  St.  James's,  or  St. 
Stephen's  ;  at  Guildhall,  or  the  Royal  Exchange.  Specious  fallacies 
will  be  drest  up  with  all  the  arts  of  delusion,  to  persuade  one  colony 
to  distinguish  herself  from  another,  by  unbecoming  condescensions', 
which  will  serve  the  ambitious  purposes  of  great  men  at  home,  and 
therefore  will  be  thought  by  them  to  entitle  their  assistants  in  obtain 
ing  them  to  considerable  rewards. 

Our  fears  will  be  excited.  Our  hopes  will  be  awakened.  It  will  be 
insinuated  to  us,  with  a  plausible  affectation  of  wisdom  and  concern, 
how  prudent  it  is  to  please  the  powerful — how  dangerous  to  provoke 
them — and  then  comes  in  the  perpetual  incantation  that  freezes  up 
every  generous  purpose  of  the  soul  in  cold,  inactive  expectation— 
"  that  if  there  is  any  request  to  be  made,  compliance  will  obtain  a 
favorable  attention." 

Our  vigilance  and  our  union  are  success  and  safety.  Our  negligence 
and  our  division  are  distress  and  death.  They  are  worse — they  are 
shame  and  slavery.  Let  us  equally  shun  the  benumbing  stillness  of 
overweening  sloth,  and  the  feverish  activity  of  that  ill  informed  zeal, 
which  busies  itself  in  maintaining  little,  mean,  and  narrow  opinions. 


26  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

Let  us  with  a  truly  wise  generosity  and  charity,  banish  and  discour 
age  all  illiberal  distinctions,  which  may  arise  from  differences  in  situa 
tions,  forms  of  government,  or  modes  of  religion.  Let  us  consider  our 
selves  as  men — freemen — Christian  freemen — separated  from  the  rest 
of  the  world,  and  firmly  bound  together  by  the  same  rights,  interests 
and  dangers.  Let  these  keep  our  attention  inflexibly  fixed  on  the 
I  great  objects,  which  we  must  continually  regard  in  order  to  preserve 
those  rights,  to  promote  those  interests,  and  to  avert  those  dangers. 

Let  these  truths  be  indelibly  impressed  on  our  minds — that  we  can 
not  be  happy  without  being  free — that  we  cannot  be  free  without 
being  secure  in  our  property — that  we  cannot  besecure  in  our 
property,  if  without  our  consent,  others  may,  as  by  right,  take  it 
away — that  taxes  imposed  on  us  by  Parliament,  do  thus  take  it 
away — that  duties  laid  for  the  sole  purpose  of  raising  money,  are 
taxes — that  attempts  to  lay  such  duties  should  be  instantly  and 
firmly  opposed — that  this  opposition  can  never  be  effectual,  unless  it 
is  the  united  effort  of  these  provinces — that  therefore  benevolence  of 
temper  towards  each  other,  and  unanimity  of  councils  are  essential  to 
the  welfare  of  the  whole — and  lastly  that  for  this  reason  every  man 
amongst  us,  who  in  any  manner  would  encourage  either  dissension, 
diffidence,  or  indifference  between  these  colonies  is  an  enemy  to  him 
self  and  to  his  country. 

The  belief  of  these  truths,  I  verily  think,  my  countrymen,  is  indis 
pensably  necessary  to  your  happiness.  I  beseech  you,  therefore, 
"  teach  them  diligently  unto  your  children,  and  talk  of  them  when 
you  sit  in  your  houses,  and  when  you  walk  by  the  way,  and  when  you 
lie  down,  and  when  you  rise  up." 

What  have  these  colonies  to  ask,  while  they  continue  free  ?  Or 
what  have  they  to  dread,  but  insidious  attempts  to  subvert  their  free 
dom  ?  Their  prosperity  does  not  depend  on  ministerial  favours  doled 
out  to  particular  provinces.  They  form  one  political  body  of  which 
each  colony  is  a  member.  Their  happiness  is  founded  on  their  con 
stitution;  and  is  to  be  promoted  by  preserving  that  constitution  in  un 
abated  vigor,  throughout  every  part.  A  spot,  a  speck  of  decay,  how 
ever  small  the  limb  on  which  it  appears,  and  however  remote  it  may 
seem  from  the  vitals,  should  be  alarming.  We  have  all  the  rights  re 
quisite  for  our  prosperity.  The  legal  authority  of  Great  Britain  may 
indeed  lay  hard  restrictions  upon  us;  but  like  the  spear  of  Telephus, 
it  will  cure  as  well  as  wound.  Her  unkindness  will  instruct  and  com 
pel  us,  after  some  time,  to  discover  in  our  industry  and  frugality,  sur 
prising  remedies — if  our  rights  continue  unviolated.  For  as  long  as 
the  products  oi  our  labor,  and  the  rewards  of  our  care,  can  properly 
be  called  our  own,  so  long  it  will  be  worth  our  while  to  be  industrious 
and  frugal.  But  if  when  we  plow — sow — reap — gather — and  thresh — • 
we  find,  that  we  plow — sow — reap — gather — and  thresh  for  others, 
whose  pleasure  is  to  be  the  sole  limitation  how  much  they  shall  take 


JOHN  DICKINSON.  27 

and  how  much  they  shall  leave,  why  should  we  repeat  the  unprofitable 
toil  ?  Horses  and  oxen  are  content  with  that  portion  of  the  fruits  of 
their  work  which  their  owners  assign  them,  in  order  to  keep  them 
strong  enough  to  raise  successive  crops;  but  even  these  beasts  will 
not  submit  to  draw  for  their  masters,  until  they  are  subdued  by  whips 
and  goads. 

Let  us  take  care  of  our  rights,  and  we  therein  take  care  of  our  pros 
perity.  "Slavery  is  ever  preceded  by  sleep."  Individuals  maybe 
dependent  on  ministers,  if  they  please.  States  should  scorn  it;  and 
if  your  are  not  wanting  to  yourselves,  you  will  have  a  proper  regard 
paid  you  by  those,  to  whom  if  you  are  not  respectable,  you  will  be 
contemptible.  But,  if  we  have  already  forgot  the  reasons  that  urged 
us,  with  unexampled  unanimity,  to  exert  ourselves  two  years  ago,  if 
our  zeal  for  the  public  good  is  worn  out  before  the  homespun  cloaths, 
which  it  caused  us  to  have  made,  if  our  resolutions  are  so  faint,  as  by 
our  present  conduct  to  condemn  our  own  late  successful  example — if 
we  are  not  affected  by  any  reverence  for  the  memory  of  our  ancestors, 
who  transmitted  to  us  that  freedom  in  which  they  had  been  blest;  if 
we  are  not  animated  by  any  regard  for  posterity,  to  whom,  by  tne 
most  sacred  obligations,  we  are  bound  to  deliver  down  the  invaluable 
inheritance;  then,  indeed,  any  minister,  or  any  tool  of  a  minister,  or 
any  creature  of  a  tool  of  a  minister,  or  any  lower  instrument;  01  ad 
ministration,  if  lower  there  be,  is  a  personage  whom  it  may  be  danger 
ous  to  offend. 

I  shall  be  extremely  sorry,  if  any  man  mistakes  my  meaning  in  any 
thing  I  have  said.  Officers  employed  by  the  crown,  are,  while  accord 
ing  to  the  laws  they  conduct  themselves,  entitled  to  legal  obedience, 
and  sincere  respect.  These  it  is  a  duty  to  render  them;  and  these  no 
good  or  prudent  person  will  withhold.  But  when  these  officers, 
through  rashness  or  design,  desire  to  enlarge  their  authority  beyond 
its  due  limits,  and  expect  improper  concessions  to  be  made  to  them, 
from  regard  for  the  employments  they  bear,  their  attempts  should  be 
considered  as  equal  injuries  to  the  crown  and  people,  and  should  be 
courageously  and  constantly  opposed.  To  suffer  our  ideas  to  be  con 
founded  by  names  on  such  occasions,  would  certainly  be  an  inexcusa 
ble  weakness,  and  probably  an  irremediable  error. 

We  have  reason  to  believe,  that  several  of  his  Majesty's  present 
ministers  are  good  men,  and  friends  to  our  country;  and  it  seems  not 
unlikely,  that  by  a  particular  concurrence  of  events,  we  have  been 
treated  a  little  more  severely  than  they  wished  we  should  be.  They 
might  not  think  it  prudent  to  stem  a  torrent.  But  what  is  the  differ 
ence  to  us,  whether  arbitrary  acts  take  their  rise  from  ministers,  or 
are  permitted  by  them  ?  Ought  any  point  to  be  allowed  to  a  good 
minister,  that  should  be  denied  to  a  bad  one  ?  The  mortality  of 

ministers,  is  a  very  frail  mortality.  A may  "'icceed  a  Shel- 

burne— A may  succeed  a  Corn  way. 


so  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

We  find  a  new  kind  of  minister  lately  spoken  of  at  home — "The 
minister  of  the  House  of  Commons."  The  term  seems  to  have  pecu 
liar  propriety  when  referred  to  these  colonies,  with  a  different,  mean 
ing  annexed  to  it,  from  that  in  which  it  is  taken  there.  By  the 
word  "  minister"  we  may  understand  not  only  a  servant  of  the  crown, 
but  a  man  of  influence  among  the  commons,  who  regard  themselves 
as  having  a  share  in  the  sovereignty  over  us.  The  "  minister  of  the 
house"  may,  in  a  point  respecting  the  colonies,  be  so  strong,  that  the 
minister  of  the  crown  in  the  house,  if  he  is  a  distinct  person,  may  not 
choose,  even  where  his  sentiments  are  favorable  to  us,  to  come  to  a 
pitched  battle  upon  our  account.  For  though  I  have  the  highest 
opinion  of  the  deference  of  the  house  for  the  King's  minister,  yet  he 
may  be  so  good  natured,  as  not  to  put  it  to  the  test,  except  it  be  for 
the  mere  and  immediate  profit  of  his  master  or  himself. 

But  whatever  kind  of  minister  he  is,  that  attempt  to  innovate  a 
single  iota  in  the  privileges  of  these  colonies,  him  I  hope  you  will  un 
dauntedly  oppose;  and  that  you  will  never  suffer  yourselves  to  be 
either  cheated  or  frightened  into  any  unworthy-  obsequiousness.  On 
such  emergencies  you  may  surely,  without  presumption,  believe,  that 
Almighty  God  himself  will  look  down  upon  your  righteous  contest 
with  gracious  approbation.  You  will  be  a  "band  of  brothers," 
cemented  by  the  dearest  ties,  and  strengthened  with  inconceivable 
supplies  of  force  and  constancy,  by  that  sympathetic  ardor,  which 
animates  good  men,  confederated  in  a  good  cause.  Your  honor  and 
welfare  will  be,  as  they  now  are,  most  intimately  concerned;  and  be 
sides,  you  are  assigned  by  divine  providence,  in  the  appointed  order 
of  things,  the  protectors  of  unborn  ages,  whose  fate  depends  upon 
your  virtue.  Whether  they  shall  arise  the  generous  and  indisputable 
heirs  of  the  noblest  patrimonies,  or  the  dastardly  and  hereditary 
drudges  of  imperious  task-masters,  you  must  determine. 

To  discharge  this  double  duty  to  yourselves,  to  your  posterity,  you 
have  nothing  to  do,  but  to  call  forth  into  use  the  good  sense  and 
spirit  of  which  you  are  possessed.  You  have  nothing  to  do,  but  to 
conduct  your  affairs  peaceably,  prudently,  firmly,  and  jointly.  By 
these  means  you  will  support  the  character  of  freemen,  without  losing 
that  of  faithful  subjects — a  good  character  in  any  government — one  of 
the  best  under  a  British  government — you  will  prove,  that  Americans 
have  that  true  magnanimity  of  soul,  that  can  resent  injuries,  without 
falling  into  rage;  and  that  though  your  devotion  to  Great  Britain  is 
the  most  affectionate,  yet  you  can  make  proper  distinctions,  and  know 
what  you  owe  to  yourselves,  as  well  as  to  her — you  will,  at  the  same 
time  that  you  advance  your  interests,  advance  your  reputation — 
you  will  convince  the  world  of  the  justice  of  your  demands,  and 
the  purity  of  your  intentions.  While  all  mankind  must  with  un 
ceasing  applauses,  confess,  that  you  indeed  deserve  liberty,  who 
so  well  understand  it,  so  passionately  love  it,  so  temperately  enjoy 


SAMUEL  ADAMS.  29 

it,  and  so  wisely,  bravely,  and  virtuously  assert,  maintain,  and   de 
fend  it. 

"  Certe  ego  libertatem,  qu<z  mihi  a  parente  mco  tractiii  est,  expenar: 
Vcrum  id  frustra  an  ob  rem  faciamt  in  vestra  manu  situm  est, 
quirites." 

For  my  part,  I  am  resolved  to  contend  for  the  liberty  delivered 
down  to  me  by  my  ancestors;  but  whether  I  shall  do  it  effectually 
or  not,  depends  on  you,  my  countrymen. 

"How  little  soever  one  is  able  to  write,  yet  when  the  liberties  of 
one's  country  are  threatened,  it  is  still  more  difficult  to  be  silent." 

A  FARMER. 


LETTER  FROM  CANDIDUS. 

SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Boston  Gazette,  October  7,  1771. 

"  Ambition  saw  that  stooping  Rome  could  bear 
A  master,  nor  had  virtue  to  be  free." 

I  believe  that  no  people  ever  yet  groaned  under  the  heavy  yoke  of 
slavery  but  when  they  deserved  it.  This  may  be  called  a  severe  cen 
sure  upon  by  far  the  greatest  part  of  the  nations  in  the  world  who  are 
involved  in  the  miseries  of  servitude.  But  however  thay  may  be  thought 
by  some  to  deserve  commiseration,  the  censure  is  just.  Zuinglius, 
one  of  the  first  reformers,  in  his  friendly  admonition  to  the  republic 
of  the  Svvitzers,  discourses  much  of  his  countrymen's  throwing  off  the 
yoke.  He  says  that  they  who  lie  under  oppression  deserve  what  they 
suffer  and  a  great  deal  more,  and  he  bids  them  perish  with  their 
oppressors.  The  truth  is,  all  might  be  free,  if  they  valued  freedom 
and  defended  it  as  they  ought.  It  is  possible  that  millions  could  be 
enslaved  by  a  few,  which  is  a  notorious  fact,  if  all  possessed  the  inde 
pendent  spirit  of  Brutus,  who,  to  his  immortal  honor,  expelled  the 
proud  tryant  of  Rome  and  his  "  Royal  and  rebellious  race."  If, 
therefore,  a  people  will  not  be  free,  if  they  have  not  virtue  enough  to 
maintain  their  liberty  against  a  presumptuous  invader,  they  deserve 
no  pity,  and  are  to  be  treated  with  contempt  and  ignominy.  Had  not 
Caesar  seen  that  Rome  was  ready  to  stoop  he  would  not  have  dared 
to  make  himself  the  master  of  that  once  brave  people.  He  was, 


30  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

indeed,  as  a  great  writer  observes,  a  smooth  and  subtle  tyrant,  who 
led  them  gently  into  slavery,  "and  on  his  brow  o'er  daring  vice, 
deluding  virtue  smiled."  By  pretending  to  be  the  people's  greatest 
friend,  he  gained  the  ascendence  over  them;  by  beguiling  arts,  hypoc 
risy,  and  flattery,  which  are  often  more  fatal  than  the  sword,  he  ob 
tained  that  supreme  power  which  his  ambitious  soul  had  long  thirsted 
for.  The  people  were  finally  prevailed  upon  to  consent  to  their  own 
ruin.  By  the  force  of  persuasion,  or  rather  by  cajoling  arts  and 
tricks,  always  made  use  of  by  men  who  have  ambitious  views,  they 
enacted  their  Lex  Regia,  whereby  quod  placuit  prineipi  Icgis  httbuit 
in  go  re  ni,  that  is,  the  will  and  pleasure  of  the  prince  had  the  force  of 
law.  His  minions  had  taken  infinite  pains  to  paint  to  their  imagina 
tions  the  godlike  virtues  of  Caesar.  They  first  persuaded  them  to  be 
lieve  that  he  was  a  deity,  and  then  to  sacrifice  to  him  those  rights  and 
liberties  which  their  ancestors  had  so  long  maintained  with  unex 
ampled  bravery  and  with  blood  and  treasure.  By  this  act  they  fixed 
a  precedent  fatal  to  all  posterity.  The  Roman  people  afterwards,  in 
fluenced  no  doubt  by  this  pernicious  example,  renewed  it  to  his  suc 
cessors,  not  at  the  end  of  every  ten  years,  but  for  life.  They  trans 
ferred  all  their  right  and  power  to  Charles  the  Great.  In  enm 
transtulit  onine  sum  jus  et  potestatem.  Thus  they  voluntarily  and 
ignominiously  surrendered  their  own  liberty,  and  exchanged  a  free 
constitution  for  a  tyranny. 

It  is  not  my  design  to  form  a  comparison  between  the  state  of  this 
country  now  and  that  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  those  dregs  of  time,  or 

between  the  disposition  of  Csesar  and  that  of .  The  comparison, 

I  confess,  would  not,  in  all  its  parts,  hold  good.  The  tyrant  of  Rome, 
to  do  him  justice,  had  learning,  courage,  and  great  abilities.  It  be 
hooves  us,  however,  to  awake,  and  advert  to  the  danger  we  are  in. 
The  tragedy  of  American  freedom,  it  is  to  be  feared,  is  nearly  com 
pleted.  A  tyranny  seems  to  be  at  the  very  door.  It  is  to  little  pur 
pose,  then,  to  go  about  coolly  to  rehearse  the  gradual  steps  that  have 
been  taken,  the  means  that  have  been  used,  and  the  instruments  em 
ployed  to  compass  the  ruin  of  the  public  liberty.  We  know  them 
and  we  detest  them.  But  what  will  this  avail,  if  we  have  not  courage 
and  resolution  to  prevent  the  completion  of  their  system  ? 

Our  enemies  would  fain  have  us  lie  down  on  the  bed  of  sloth  and 
security,  and  persuade  ourselves  that  there  is  no  danger.  They  are 
daily  administering  the  opiate  with  multiplied  arts  and  delusions,  and  I 
am  sorry  to  observe  that  the  gilded  pill  is  so  alluring  to  some  who  call 
themselves  the  friends  of  liberty.  But  there  is  no  danger  when  the 
very  foundations  of  our  civil  constitution  tremble.  When  an  attempt 
was  first  made  to  disturb  the  corner-stone  of  the  fabric,  we  were  uni 
versally  and  justly  alarmed.  And  can  we  be  cool  spectators,  when  we 
see  it  already  removed  from  its  place  ?  With  what  resentment  and 
indignation  did  we  first  receive  the  intelligence  of  a  design  to  make  us 


SAMUEL  ADAMS.  31 

tributary,  not  to  natural  enemies,  but,  infinitely  more  humiliating,  to 
fellow-subjects  !  And  yet,  with  unparalleled  insolence,  we  are  told  to 
be  quiet  when  we  see  that  very  money  which  is  torn  from  us  by  law 
less  force  made  use  of  still  further  to  oppose  us,  to  feed  and  pamper 
a  set  of  infamous  wretches  who  swarm  like  the  locusts  of  Egypt, 
and  some  of  them  expect  to  revel  in  wealth  and  riot  on  the  spoils  of 
our  country.  Is  it  a  time  for  us  to  sleep  when  our  free  government  is 
essentially  changed,  and  a  new  one  is  forming  upon  a  quite  different 
system  ?  A  government  without  the  least  dependence  on  the  people — 
a  government  under  the  absolute  control  of  a  minister  of  state,  upon 
whose  sovereign  dictates  is  to  depend  not  only  the  time  when,  and 
the  place  where,  the  Legislative  Assembly  shall  sit,  but  whether  it 
shall  sit  at  all ;  and  if  it  is  allowed  to  meet,  it  shall  be  liable  immedi 
ately  to  be  thrown  out  of  existence  if  in  any  one  point  it  fails  in 
obedience  to  his  arbitrary  mandates. 

Have  we  not  already  seen  specimens  of  what  we  are  to  expect  under 
such  a  government  in  the  instructions  which  Mr.  Hutchinson  has  re 
ceived,  and  which  he  has  publicly  avowed  and  declared  he  is  bound  to 
obey  ?  By  one  he  is  to  refuse  his  assent  to  a  tax  bill  unless  the  Com 
missioners  ot  the  Customs  and  other  favorites  are  exempted  ;  and  if 
these  may  be  freed  from  taxes  by  the  order  of  a  minister,  may  not  all 
his  tools  and  drudges,  or  any  others  who  are  subservient  to  his 
designs,  expect  the  same  indulgence?  By  another,  he  is  to  forbid  to 
pass  a  grant  of  the  Assembly  to  any  agent  but  one  to  whose  election 
he  has  given  his  consent,  which  is,  in  effect,  to  put  it  out  of  our  power 
to  take  the  necessary  and  legal  steps  for  the  redress  of  those  grievances 
which  we  suffer  by  the  arts  and  machinations  of  ministers  and  their 
minions  here.  What  difference  is  there  between  the  present  state 
of  this  province,  which  in  course  will  be  the  deplorable  state  of 
America  and  that  of  Rome  under  the  law  before  mentioned  ?  The 
difference  is  only  this,  that  they  gave  their  formal  consent  to  the 
change,  which  we  have  not  yet  done.  But  let  us  be  upon  our 
guard  against  even  a  negative  submission,  for,  agreeable  to  the  sen 
timents  of  a  celebrated  writer,  who  thoroughly  understood  his  sub 
ject,  if  we  are  voluntarily  silent,  as  the  conspirators  would  have  us 
be,  it  will  be  considered  as  an  approbation  of  the  change.  "  By  the 
fundamental  laws  of  England  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament,  in  con 
cert  with  the  King,  exercise  the  legislative  power;  but  if  the  two 
Houses  should  be  so  infatuated  as  to  resolve  to  suppress  their  powers, 
and  invest  the  King  with  the  full  and  absolute  government,  certainly 
the  nation  would  not  suffer  it  !"  And  if  a  minister  shall  usurp 
the  supreme  and  absolute  government  of  America,  and  set  up  his 
instructions  as  laws  in  the  colonies,  and  their  governors  shall  be  so 
weak  or  so  wicked  as,  for  the  sake  of  keeping  their  places,  to  be  made 
the  instrument  in  putting  them  in  execution,  who  will  presume  to  say 
that  the  people  have  not  a  right,  or  that  it  is  not  their  indispensable 


3 2  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

duty  to  God  and  their  country,  by  all  rational  means  in  their  power, 
to  resist  them! 

"  Be  firm,  my  friends,  nor  let  unmanly  sloth 
Twine  round  your  hearts  indissoluble  chains; 
Ne'er  yet  by  force  was  freedom  overcome, 
Unless  corruption  first  dejects  the  pride 
And  guardian  vigor  of  the  free  born  souls 
All  crude  attempts  at  violence  are  vain. 

Determined  hold 

Your  independence;  for,  that  once  destroyed, 
Unfounded  freedom  is  a  morning  dream. 

The  liberties  of  our  country,  the  freedom  of  our  civil  constitution, 
are  worth  defending  at  all  hazards  ;  and  it  is  our  duty  to  defend  them 
against  all  attacks.  We  have  received  them  as  a  fair  inheritance  from 
our  worthy  ancestors.  They  purchased  them  for  us  with  toil  and 
danger,  and  expense  of  treasure  and  blood,  and  transmitted  them  to 
us  with  care  and  diligence.  It  will  bring  an  everlasting  mark  of  in 
famy  on  the  present  generation,  enlightened  as  it  is,  if  we  should 
suffer  them  to  be  wrested  from  us  by  violence  without  a  struggle,  or 
be  cheated  out  of  them  by  the  artifices  of  false  and  designing  men. 
Of  the  latter,  we  are  in  most  danger  at  present.  Let  us  therefore  be 
aware  of  it.  Let  us  contemplate  our  forefathers  and  posterity,  and 
resolve  to  maintain  the  rights  bequeathed  to  us  from  the  former  for 
the  sake  of  the  latter.  Instead  of  sitting  down  satisfied  with  the 
efforts  we  have  already  made,  which  is  the  wish  of  our  enemies,  the 
necessity  of  the  times  more  than  ever  calls  for  our  utmost  circumspec 
tion,  deliberation,  fortitude,  and  perseverance.  Let  us  remember  that 
"if  we  suffer  tamely  a  lawless  attack  upon  our  liberty,  we  encourage 
it,  and  involve  others  in  our  doom!"  It  is  a  very  serious  considera 
tion,  which  should  deeply  impress  our  minds,  that  millions  yet  unborn 
may  be  the  miserable  sharers  in  the  event ! 

"CANDIDUS." 


REPORT  ON  THE   RIGHTS  OF  COLONISTS. 

SAMUEL    ADAMS. 

NATURAL  RIGHTS  OF  THE  COLONISTS  AS  MEN. 

Boston^  November  20,  1772. 

Among  the  natural  rights  of  the  colonists  are  these:  First,  a  right 
to  life.  Second,  to  liberty.  Thirdly,  to  property:  together  with  the 
i  ight  to  support  and  defend  them  in  the  best  manner  they  can.  These 


SAMUEL   ADAMS.  33 

are  evident  branches  of,  rather  than  deductions  from,  the  duty  of  self- 
preservation,  commonly  called  the  first  law  of  nature. 

All  men  have  a  right  to  remain  in  a  state  of  nature  as  long  as  they 
please,  and  in  case  of  intolerable  oppression,  civil  or  religious,  to 
leave  the  society  they  belong  to,  and  enter  into  another. 

When  men  enter  into  society,  it  is  by  voluntary  consent,  and  they 
have  a  right  to  demand  and  insist  upon  the  performance  of  such  con 
ditions  and  previous  limitations  as  form  an  equitable  original  compact. 

Every  natural  right  not  expressly  given  up,  or,  from  the  nature  of  a 
social  compact  necessarily  ceded,  remains. 

All  positive  and  civil  laws  should  conform,  as  far  as  possible,  to  the 
law  of  natural  reason  and  equity. 

As  neither  reason  requires  nor  religion  permits  the  contrary,  every 
man  living  in  or  out  of  a  state  of  civil  society  has  a  right  peaceably 
and  quietly  to  worship  God  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  conscience. 

"Just  and  true  liberty,  equal  and  impartial  liberty,"  in  matters 
spiritual  and  temporal  is  a  thing  that  all  men  are  clearly  entitled  to  by 
the  eternal  and  immutable  laws  of  God  and  nature,  as  well  as  by  the 
law  of  nations  and  all  well-grounded  municipal  laws,  which  must  have 
their  foundation  in  the  former. 

In  regard  to  religion,  mutual  toleration  in  the  different  professions 
thereof,  is  what  all  good  and  candid  minds  in  all  ages  have  ever  prac 
tised,  and  both  by  precept  and  example  inculcated  on  mankind.  It  is 
now  generally  agreed  among  Christians  that  this  spirit  of  toleration, 
in  the  fullest  extent  consistent  with  the  being  of  civil  society,  is  the 
chief  characteristical  mark  of  the  true  Church.  Insomuch  that  Mr. 
Locke  has  asserted  and  proved,  beyond  the  possibility  of  contradiction 
on  any  solid  ground,  that  such  toleration  ought  to  be  extended  to  all 
whose  doctrines  are  not  subversive  of  society.  The  only  sects,  which 
he  thinks  ought  to  be,  and  which  by  all  wise  laws  are,  excluded  from 
such  toleration,  are  those  who  teach  doctrines  subversive  of  the  civil 
government  under  which  they  live.  The  Roman  Catholics,  or  Papists, 
are  excluded  by  reason  of  such  doctrines  as  these  : — That  princes  ex 
communicated  may  be  deposed,  and  those  that  they  call  heretics  may 
be  destroyed  without  mercy;  besides  their  recognizing  the  Pope  in  so 
absolute  a  manner,  in  subversion  of  government,  by  introducing,  as 
far  as  possible  into  the  states  under  whose  protection  they  enjoy  life, 
liberty  and  property,  that  solecism  in  politics,  imperiuni  in  iinperio, 
leading  directly  to  the  worst  anarchy  and  confusion,  civil  discord,  war, 
and  bloodshed. 

The  natural  liberty  of  man  by  entering  into  society  is  abridged  or 
restrained,  so  far  only  as  is  necessary  for  the  great  end  of  society — the 
best  good  of  the  whole. 

In  the  state  of  nature  every  man  is,  under  God,  judge  and  sole  judge 
of  his  own  rights  and  of  the  injuries  done  him.  By  entering  into 
society  he  agrees  to  an  arbiter  or  indifferent  judge  between  him  and 


34  ,       AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

his  neighbor^;  but  he  no  more  renounces  his  original  right,  thereby 
taking  a  cause  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of  law,  and  leaving  the  de 
cision  to  referees  or  indifferent  arbitrators.  In  the  last  case,  he  must 
pay  the  referee  for  time  and  trouble.  He  should  also  be  willing  to 
pay  his  just  quota  for  the  support  of  the  government,  the  law  and  the 
constitution;  the  end  of  which  is  to  furnish  indifferent  and  impartial 
judges  in  all  cases  that  may  happen,  whether  civil,  ecclesiastical, 
marine,  or  military. 

The  natural  liberty  of  man  is  to  be  free  from  any  superior  power  on 
earth,  and  not  to  be  under  the  will  or  legislative  authority  of  man,  but 
only  to  have  the  law  of  nature  for  his  rule. 

In  the  state  of  nature  men  may,  as  the  patriarchs  did,  employ  hired 
servants  for  the  defence  of  their  lives,  liberties  and  property,  and  they 
should  pay  them  reasonable  wages.  Government  was  instituted  for 
the  purpose  of  common  defence,  and  those  who  hold  the  reins  of  gov 
ernment  have  an  equitable,  natural  right  to  an  honorable  support  from 
the  same  principle  that  "  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire."  But  then 
the  same  community  which  they  serve  ought  to  be  the  assessors  of 
their  pay.  Governors  have  a  right  to  seek  and  take  what  they  please; 
by  this,  instead  of  being  content  with  the  station  assigned  them,  that 
of  honorable  servants  of  the  society,  they  would  soon  become  absolute 
masters,  despots  and  tyrants.  Hence,  as  a  private  man  has  a  right  to 
say  what  wages  he  will  give  in  his  private  affairs,  so  has  a  community 
to  determine  what  they  will  give  and  grant  of  their  substance  for  the 
administration  of  public  affairs.  And  in  both  cases  more  are  ready  to 
offer  their  service  at  the  proposed  and  stipulated  price  than  are  able 
and  willing  to  perform  their  duty. 

In  short  it  is  the  greatest  absurdity  to  suppose  it  in  the  power  of 
one,  or  any  number  of  men,  at  the  entering  into  society  to  renounce 
their  essential  natural  rights,  or  the  means  of  preserving  those  rights, 
when  the  grand  end  of  civil  government,  from  the  very  nature  of  its 
institution,  is  for  the  support,  protection,  and  defence  of  those  very 
rights;  the  principal  of  which,  as  is  before  observed,  are  life,  liberty, 
and  property.  If  men  through  fear,  fraud  or  mistake,  should  in  terms 
renounce  or  give  up  any  essential  natural  right,  the  eternal  law  of 
reason  and  the  grand  end  of  society  would  absolutely  vacate  such  re 
nunciation.  The  right  of  freedom  being  the  gift  of  God  Almighty,  it 
is  not  in  the  power  of  man  to  alienate  this  gift  and  voluntarily  become 
a  slave. 

THE  RIGHTS   OF   THE   COLONISTS   AS   CHRISTIANS. 

These  may  be  best  understood  by  reading  and  carefully  studying  the 
institutes  of  the  great  Lawgiver  and  head  of  the  Christian  Church, 
which  are  to  be  found  clearly  written  and  promulgated  in  the  New 
Testament. 


SAMUEL   ADAMS.  35 

By  the  act  of  the  British  Parliament,  commonly  called  the  Toleration 
Act,  every  subject  in  England,  except  Papists,  etc.,  was  restored  to, 
and  re-established  in,  his  natural  right  to  worship  God  according  to  the 
dictates  of  his  own  conscience.  And  by  the  charter  of  this  province 
it  is  granted,  ordained  and  established  (that  is  declared  as  an  original 
right),  that  there  shall  be  liberty  of  conscience  allowed  in  the  worship 
of  God  to  all  Christians  except  Papists,  inhabiting,  or  which  shall  in 
habit  or  be  resident  within  such  province  or  territory.  Magna  Charta 
itself  is  in  substance  but  a  constrained  declaration  or  proclamation 
and  promulgation  in  the  name  of  King,  Lords,  and  Commons  of  the 
sense  the  latter  had  their  original,  inherent,  indefeasible,  natural 
rights,  as  also  those  of  free  citizens  equally  perdurable  with  the  other. 
That  great  author,  that  great  jurist,  and  even  that  court  writer,  Mr. 
Justice  Blackstone,  holds  that  this  recognition  was  justly  obtained  of 
King  John,  sword  in  hand.  And  peradventure  it  must  be  one  day, 
sword  in  hand,  again  rescued  and  preserved  from  total  destruction  and 
oblivion. 

THE    RIGHTS    OF   THE   COLONISTS    AS    SUBJECTS, 

A  commonwealth  or  state  is  a  body  politic,  or  civil  society  of  men 
united  together  to  promote  their  mutual  safety  and  prosperity  by 
means  of  their  union. 

The  absolute  right  of  Englishmen  and  all  freemen,  in  or  out  of  civil 
society,  are  principally  personal  security,  personal  liberty,  and  private 
property. 

All  persons  born  in  the  British  American  Colonies,  are  by  the  laws 
of  God  and  nature,  and  by  the  common  law  of  England,  exclusive  of 
all  charters  from  the  Crown,  well  entitled,  and  by  acts  of  the  British 
Parliament  are  declared  to  be  entitled,  to  all  the  natural,  essential,  in 
herent,  and  inseparable  rights,  liberties  and  privileges  of  subjects  born 
in  Great  Britain  or  within  the  realm.  Among  these  rights  are  the 
following,  which  no  man,  or  body  of  men.  consistently  with  their  own 
rights  as  men  and  citizens,  or  members  of  society,  can  for  themselves 
give  up  or  take  away  from  others, 

"First.  The  first  fundamental -positive  law  of  all  commonwealths  or 
states,  is  the  establishing  the  legislative  power.  As  the  first  funda 
mental  natural  law,  also,  which  is  to  govern  even  the  legislative  power 
itself  is  the  preservation  of  the  society. 

"  Secondly.  The  legislative  has  no  right  to  absolute  arbitrary  power 
over  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  the  people;  nor  can  mortals  assume  a 
prerogative  not  only  too  high  for  men,  but  for  angels,  and  therefore 
reserved  for  the  exercise  of  the  Deity  alone. 

"  The  Legislative  cannot  justly  assume  to  itself  a  power  to  rule  by 
extempore  arbitrary  decrees  ;  but  it  is  bound  to  see  that  justice  is  dis 
pensed,  and  that  the  rights  of  the  subjects  be  decided  by  promulgated, 


36  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

standing,  and  known  laws,  and  authorized  independent  judges;"  that 
is,  independent,  as  far  as  possible,  of  prince  and  people.  "There 
should  be  one  rule  of  justice  for  rich  and  poor,  for  the  favorite  at 
court,  and  the  countryman  at  the  plough. 

"Thirdly.  The  supreme  power  cannot  justly  take  from  any  man 
any  part  of  his  property  without  his  consent  in  person  or  by  his 
representative." 

These  are  some  of  the  first  principles  of  natural  law  and  justice,  and 
the  great  barriers  of  all  free  states,  and  of  the  British  Constitution  in 
particular.  It  is  utterly  irreconcilable  to  these  principles,  and  to 
many  other  fundamental  maxims  of  the  common  law,  common  sense, 
and  reason,  that  a  British  House  of  Commons  should  have  a  right 
at  pleasure  to  give  and  grant  the  property  of  the  colonists.  (That 
the  colonists  are  well  entitled  to  all  the  essential  rights,  liberties,  and 
privileges  of  men  and  freemen  born  in  Britain,  is  manifest  not  only 
from  the  colony  charters  in  general,  but  acts  of  the  British  Parliament.) 
The  statute  of  the  I3th  of  Geo.  II,  c.  7,  naturalizes  every  foreigner 
after  seven  years'  residence.  The  words  of  the  Massachusetts  charter 
are  these  :  "  And  further,  our  will  and  pleasure  is,  and  we  do  hereby, 
for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  grant,  establish,  and  ordain,  that  all 
and  every  of  the  subjects  of  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  which  shall 
go  to  and  inhabit  within  our  said  Province  or  Territory,  and  every  of 
their  children  which  shall  happen  to  be  born  there  or  on  the  seas  in 
going  thither  or  returning  from  thence,  shall  have  and  enjoy  all  lib 
erties  and  immunities  of  free  and  natural  subjects  within  any  of  the 
dominions  of  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  to  all  intents,  constructions, 
and  purposes  whatsoever,  as  if  they  and  every  one  of  them  were  born 
within  this,  our  realm  of  England." 

Now  what  liberty  can  there  be  where  property  is  taken  away  with 
out  consent?  Can  it  be  said  with  any  color  of  truth  and  justice  that 
this  continent  of  three  thousand  miles  in  length,  and  of  a  breadth  as 
yet  unexplored,  in  which,  however,  it  is  supposed  there  are  five 
millions  of  people,  has  the  least  voice,  vote,  or  influence  in  the  British 
Parliament?  Have  they  all  together  any  more  weight  or  power  to 
return  a  single  member  to  that  House  of  Commons  who  have  not  in 
advertently,  but  deliberately,  assumed  a  power  to  dispose  of  their 
lives,  liberties,  and  properties,  than  to  choose  an  Emperor  of  China? 
Had  the  colonists  a  right  to  return  members  to  the  British  Parliament, 
it  would  only  be  hurtful,  as,  from  their  local  situation  and  circum 
stances  it  is  impossible  they  should  ever  be  truly  and  properly  repre 
sented  there.  The  inhabitants  of  this  country,  in  all  probability,  in  a 
few  years,  will  be  more  numerous  than  those  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  together  ;  yet  it  is  absurdly  expected  by  the  promoters  of  the 
present  measure  that  these,  with  their  posterity  to  all  generations, 
should  be  easy  while  their  property  shall  be  disposed  of  by  a  House 
of  Commons  at  three  thousand  miles  distance  from  them,  and  who 


JOSEPH    WARREN.  37 

cannot  be  supposed  to  have  the  least  care  or  concern  for  their  real 
interest ;  who  have  not  only  no  natural  care  for  their  interest,  but 
must  be  in  effect  bribed  against  it,  as  every  burden  they  lay  on  the 
colonists  is  so  much  saved  or  gained  to  themselves.  Hitherto,  many 
of  the  colonists  have  been  free  from  quit  rents  ;  but  if  the  breath  of 
a  British  House  of  Commons  can  originate  an  act  for  taking  away  all 
our  money,  our  lands  will  go  next,  or  be  subject  to  rack  rent  from 
haughty  and  relentless  landlords,  who  will  ride  at  ease  while  we  are 
trodden  in  the  dirt.  The  colonists  have  been  branded  with  the  odious 
names  of  traitors  and  rebels  only  for  complaining  of  their  grievances. 
How  long  such  treatment  will  or  ought  to  be  borne,  is  submitted. 


ORATION. 
JOSEPH  WARREN. 

Boston,  March  5,  1772. 

Quis  talia  fando, 

Myrmidonum,  Dolopumve,  nut  duri  miles  Ulyssei^ 
Temperet  a  lacrymis. — VIRGIL. 

When  we  turn  over  the  historic  page  and  trace  the  rise  and  fall  of 
states  and  empires,  the  mighty  revolutions  which  have  so  often  varied 
the  face  of  the  world  strike  our  minds  with  solemn  surprise,  and  we 
are  naturally  led  to  endeavor  to  search  out  the  causes  of  such  aston 
ishing  changes. 

That  man  is  formed  for  social  life  is  an  observation  which,  upon  our 
first  inquiry,  presents  itself  immediately  to  our  view,  and  our  reason 
approves  that  wise  and  generous  principle  which  actuated  the  first 
founders  of  civil  government  ;  an  institution  which  hath  its  origin  in 
the  weakness  of  individuals,  and  hath  for  its  end  the  strength  and 
security  of  all :  and  so  long  as  the  means  of  effecting  this  important 
end  are  thoroughly  known,  and  religiously  attended  to,  government 
is  one  of  the  richest  blessings  to  mankind,  and  ought  to  be  held  in  the 
highest  veneration. 

In  young  and  new-formed  communities  the  grand  design  of  this  in 
stitution  is  most  generally  understood  and  the  most  strictly  regarded  ; 
the  motives  which  urged  to  the  social  compact  cannot  be  at  once  for 
gotten,  and  that  equality  which  is  remembered  to  have  subsisted  so 
lately  among  them,  prevents  those  who  are  clothed  with  authority 
from  attempting  to  invade  the  freedom  of  their  brethren  ;  or  if  such 


33  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

an  attempt  is  made,  it  prevents  the  community  from  suffering  the 
offender  to  go  unpunished  :  every  member  feels  it  to  be  his  interest 
and  knows  it  to  be  his  duty  to  preserve  inviolate  the  constitution  on 
which  the  public  safety  depends,  and  he  is  equally  ready  to  assist  the 
magistrate  in  the  2xecution  of  the  laws,  and  the  subject  in  defence  of 
his  right ;  and  so  long  as  this  noble  attachment  to  a  constitution, 
founded  on  free  and  benevolent  principles,  exists  in  full  vigor,  in  any 
state,  that  state  must  be  flourishing  and  happy. 

It  was  this  noble  attachment  to  a  free  constitution  which  raised 
ancient  Rome  from  the  smallest  beginnings  to  that  bright  summit  of 
happiness  and  glory  to  which  she  arrived  ;  and  it  was  the  loss  of  this 
which  plunged  her  from  that  summit  into  the  black  gulf  of  infamy 
and  slavery.  It  was  this  attachment  which  inspired  her  senators  with 
wisdom  ;  it  was  this  which  glowed  in  th*.1  breast  of  her  heroes  ;  it  was 
this  which  guarded  her  liberties  and  extended  her  dominions,  gave 
peace  at  home,  and  commanded  respect  abroad  ;  and  when  this  de 
cayed  her  magistrates  lost  their  reverence  for  justice  and  the  laws, 
and  degenerated  into  tyrants  and  oppressors — her  senators,  forgetful 
of  their  dignity,  and  seduced  by  base  corruption,  betrayed  their 
country — her  soldiers,  regardless  of  their  relation  to  the  community, 
and  urged  only  by  the  hopes  of  plunder  and  rapine,  unfeelingly  com 
mitted  the  most  flagrant  enormities  ;  and,  hired  to  the  trade  of  death, 
with  relentless  fury  they  perpetrated  the  most  cruel  murders,  whereby 
the  streets  of  imperial  Rome  were  drenched  with  her  noblest  blood. 
Thus  this  empress  of  the  world  lost  her  dominions  abroad,  and  her 
inhabitants,  dissolute  in  their  manners,  at  length  became  contented 
slaves  ;  and  she  stands  to  this  day  the  scorn  and  derision  of  nations, 
and  a  monument  of  this  eternal  truth,  ihak  public  happiness  depends  on 
a  virtuous  and  unshaken  attachment  to  a  free  constitution. 

It  was  this  attachment  to  a  constitution,  founded  on  free  and  benev 
olent  principles,  which  inspired  the  first  settlers  of  this  country — they 
saw  with  grief  the  daring  outrages  committed  on  the  free  constitution 
of  their  native  land — they  knew  nothing  but  a  civil  war  could  at  that 
time  restore  its  pristine  purity.  So  hard  was  it  to  resolve  to  embrue 
their  hands  in  the  blood  of  their  brethren,  that  they  chose  rather  to 
quit  their  fair  possessions  and  seek  another  habitation  in  a  distant 
dime.  When  they  came  to  this  new  world,  which  they  fairly  pur 
chased  of  the  Indian  natives,  the  only  rightful  proprietors,  they  culti 
vated  the  then  barren  soil  by  their  incessant  labor,  and  defended 
their  dear-bought  possessions  with  the  fortitude  of  the  Christian  and 
the  bravery  of  the  hero. 

After  various  struggles,  which,  during  the  tyrannic  reigns  of  the 
house  of  Stuart,  were  constantly  kept  up  between  right  and  wrong, 
between  liberty  and  slavery,  the  connection  between  Great  Britain  and 
this  colony  was  settled  in  the  reign  of  King  William  and  Queen  Mary, 
by  a  compact,  the  conditions  of  which  were  expressed  in  a  charter,  by 


JOSEPH    WARREN.  39 

which  all  the  liberties  and  immunities  of  British  subjects  were  con 
fided  to  this  province,  as  fully  and  as  absolutely  as  they  possibly 
could  be  by  any  human  instrument  which  can  be  devised.  And  it  is 
undeniably  true,  that  the  greatest  and  most  important  right  of  a 
British  subject  is,  that  he  shall  be  governed  by  no  laws  biit  those  to  which 
he,  either  in  person  or  by  his  representatives  hath  given  his  consent  : 
and  this  I  will  venture  to  assert  is  the  great  basis  of  British  freedom  ; 
it  is  interwoven  with  the  Constitution;  and  whenever  this  is  lost,  the 
Constitution  must  be  destroyed. 

The  British  Constitution  (of  which  ours  is-  a  copy)  is  a  happy  com 
pound  of  the  three  forms  (under  some  of  which  all  governments  may 
be  ranged)  viz.,  monarchy,  aristocracy,  and  democracy;  of  these  three 
the  British  legislature  is  composed,  and  without  the  consent  of  each 
branch,  nothing  can  carry  with  it  the  force  of  a  law  ;  but  when  a  law 
is  to  be  passed  for  raising  a  tax,  that  law  can  originate  only  in  the 
democratic  branch,  which  is  the  House  of  Commons  in  Britain,  and 
the  House  of  Representatives  here.  The  reason  is  obvious:  they  and 
their  constituents  are  to  pay  much  the  largest  part  of  it ;  but  as  the 
aristocratic  branch,  which,  in  Britain,  is  the  House  of  Lords,  and  in 
this  province,  the  Council,  are  also  to  pay  some  part,  their  consent  is 
necessary;  and  as  the  monarchic  branch,  which  in  Britain  is  the  King, 
and  with  us,  either  the  King  in  person,  or  the  Governor  whom  he  shall 
be  pleased  to  appoint  to  act  in  his  stead,  is  supposed  to  have  a  just 
sense  of  his  own  interest,  which  is  that  of  all  the  subjects  in  general, 
his  consent  is  also  necessary,  and  when  the  consent  of  these  three 
branches  is  obtained,  the  taxation  is  most  certainly  legal. 

Let  us  now  allow  ourselves  a  few  moments  to  examine  the  late  acts 
of  the  British  Parliament  for  taxing  America.  Let  us  with  candor 
judge  whether  they  are  constitutionally  binding  upon  us  ;  if  they  are, 
in  the'name  of  justice  let  us  submit  to  them,  without  one  murmuring 
word. 

First,  I  would  ask  whether  the  members  of  the  British  House  of 
Commons  are  the  democracy  of  this  province?  if  they  are,  they  are 
either  the  people  of  this  province,  or  are  elected  by  the  people  of  this 
province,  to  represent  them,  and  have  therefore  a  constitutional  right 
to  originate  a  bill  for  taxing  them ;  it  is  most  certain  they  are 
neither  ;  and  therefore  nothing  done  by  them  can  be  said  to  be 
done  by  the  democratic  branch  of  our  Constitution.  I  would  next 
ask  whether  the  Lords,  who  compose  the  aristocratic  branch  of  the 
Legislature,  are  peers  of  America?  I  never  heard  it  was  (even  in  these 
extraordinary  times)  so  much  as  pretended,  and  if  they  are  not,  cer 
tainly  no  act  of  theirs  can  be  said  to  be  the  act  of  the  aristocratic 
branch  of  our  Constitution.  The  power  of  the  monarchic  branch  we, 
with  pleasure,  acknowledge  resides  in  the  King,  who  may  act  either 
in  person  or  by  his  representative  ;  and  I  freely  confess  that  I  can  see 
no  reason  why  a  proclamation  for  raising  in  America  issued  by  the 


40  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

King's  sole  authority  would  not  be  equally  consisLent  with  our  cwn 
Constitution,  and  therefore  equally  binding  upon  us  with  the  late  acts 
of  the  British  Parliament  for  taxing  us  ;  for  it  is  plain,  that  if  there 
is  any  validity  in  those  acts,  it  must  arise  altogether  from  the 
monarchical  branch  of  the  Legislature  ;  and  I  further  think  that  it 
would  be  at  least  as  equitable  ;  for  I  do  not  conceive  it  to  be 
of  the  least  importance  to  us  by  whom  our  property  is  taken 
away,  so  long  as  it  is  taken  without  our  consent ;  and  I  am  very 
much  at  a  loss  to  know  by  what  figure  of  rhetoric,  the  inhabitants  of 
this  province  can  be  called  free  subjects,  when  they  are  obliged  to 
obey  implicitly,  such  laws  as  are  made  for  them  by  men  three  thou 
sand  miles  off,  whom  they  know  not,  and  whom  they  never  empower 
ed  to  act  for  them,  or  how  they  can  be  said  to  have  property,  when  a 
body  of  men,  over  whom  they  have  not  the  least  control,  and  who  are 
not  in  any  way  accountable  to  them,  shall  oblige  them  to  deliver  up 
part,  or  the  whole  of  their  substance  without  even  asking  their  con 
sent:  and  yet  whoever  pretends  that  the  late  acts  of  the  British  Parlia 
ment  for  taxing  America  ought  to  be  deemed  binding  upon  us,  must 
admit  at  once  that  we  are  absolute  slaves,  and  have  no  property  of 
our  own;  or  else  that  we  may  be  freemen,  and  at  the  same  time  under 
a  necessity  of  obeying  the  arbitrary  commands  of  those  over  whom  we 
have  no  control  or  influence,  and  that  we  may  have  property  of  our 
own,  which  is  entirely  at  the  disposal  of  another.  Such  gross  absurdi 
ties,  I  believe  will  not  be  relished  in  this  enlightened  age:  and  it  can 
be  no  matter  of  wonder  that  the  people  quickly  perceived,  and  seri 
ously  complained  of  the  inroads  which  these  acts  must  unavoidably 
make  upon  their  liberty,  and  of  the  hazard  to  which  their  whole  prop 
erty  is  by  therrl  exposed;  for,  if  they  maybe  taxed  without  their  con 
sent,  even  in  the  smallest  trifle,  they  may  also,  without  their  consent, 
be  deprived  of  every  thing  they  possess,  although  never  so  valuable, 
never  so  dear.  Certainly  it  never  entered  the  hearts  of  our  ancestors, 
that  after  so  many  dangers  in  this  then  desolate  wilderness,  their  hard- 
earned  property  should  be  at  the  disposal  of  the  British  Parliament; 
and  as  it  was  soon  found  that  this  taxation  could  not  be  supported  by 
reason  and  argument,  it  seemed  necessary  that  one  act  of  oppression 
should  be  enforced  by  another,  and  therefore,  contrary  to  our  just 
rights  as  possessing,  or  at  least  having  a  just  title  to  possess,  all  the 
liberties  and  immunities  of  British  subjects,  a  standing  army  was  es 
tablished  among  us  in  time  of  peace;  and  evidently  for  the  purpose  of 
effecting  that,  which  it  was  one  principal  design  of  the  fonnders  of  the 
constitution  to  prevent  (when  they  declared  a  standing  army  in  a  time 
of  peace  to  be  against  law),  namely,  for  the  enforcement  of  obedience 
to  acts  which,  upon  fair  examination,  appeared  to  be  unjust  and  un 
constitutional. 

The  ruinous  consequences  of  standing  armies  to  free  communities 
may  be  seen  in  the  histories  of  Syracuse,  Rome,  and  many  other  once 


JOSE  Pi:    WARREN.  4* 

flourishing  states:  some  of  which  have  now  scarce  a  name!  their  bane 
ful  influence  is  most  suddenly  felt,  when  they  are  placed  in  populous 
cities;  for,  by  a  corruption  of  morals,  the  public  happiness  is  imme 
diately  affected!  and  that  this  is  one  of  the  effects  of  quartering  troops 
in  a  populous  city,  is  a  truth,  to  which  many  a  mourning  parent,  many 
a  lost,  despairing  child  in  this  metropolis  must  bear  a  very  melancholy 
testimony.  Soldiers  are  also  taught  to  consider  arms  as  the  only  ar 
biters  by  which  every  dispute  is  to  be  decided  between  contending 
.states  ;— they  are  instructed  implicitly  to  obey  their  commanders,  with 
out  enquiring  into  the  justice  of  the  cause  they  are  engaged  to  support ; 
hence  it  is,  that  they  are  ever  to  be  dreaded  as  the  ready  engines  of 
tyranny  and  oppression.  And  it  is  too  observable  that  they  are  prone 
to  introduce  the  same  mode  of  decision  in  the  disputes  of  individuals, 
and  from  thence  have  often  arisen  great  animosities  between  them 
and  the  inhabitants,  who,  whilst  in  a  naked,  defenceless  state,  are  fre 
quently  insulted  and  abused  by  an  armed  soldiery.  And  this  will  be 
more  especially  the  case,  when  the  troops  are  informed  that  the  inten 
tion  of  their  being  stationed  in  any  city  is  to  overawe  the  inhabitants. 
That  this  was  the  avowed  design  of  stationing  an  armed  force  in  this 
town  is  sufficiently  known  ;  and  we,  my  fellow  citizens,  have  seen,  we 
have  felt  the  tragical  effects  ! —  The  fatal  fifik  of  March,  1770,  can  never 
be  forgotten — The  horrors  of  that  dreadful  night  are  but  too  deeply  im 
pressed  on  our  Jiearts — Language  is  too  feeble  to  paint  the  emotion  of 
our  souls,  when  our  streets  were  stained  with  the  blood  of  our  breth 
ren — when  our  ears  were  wounded  by  the  groans  of  the  dying,  and  our 
eyes  were  tormented  with  the  sight  of  the  mangled  bodies  of  the  dead. 
When  our  alarmed  imagination  presented  to  our  view  our  houses 
wrapt  in  flames,  our  children  subjected  to  the  barbarous  c?.  rice  of 
the  raging  soldiery, — our  beauteous  virgins  exposed  to  all  tuc  inso 
lence  of  unbridled  passion, — our  virtuous  wives,  endeared  to  us  by 
every  tender  tie,  falling  a  sacrifice  to  worse  than  brutal  violence,  and 
perhaps  like  the  famed  Lucretia,  distracted  with  anguish  and  despair, 
ending  their  wretched  lives  by  their  own  fair  hands.  When  we  be 
held  the  authors  of  our  distress  parading  in  our  streets,  or  drawn  ap 
in  a  regular  battalia,  as  though  in  a  hostile  city,  our  hearts  beat  to 
arms  ;  we  snatched  our  weapons,  almost  resolved,  by  one  decisive 
stroke,  to  avenge  the  death  of  our  slaughtered  brethren,  and  to  secure 
from  future  danger,  all  that  we  held  most  dear :  but  propitious  heaven 
forbade  the  bloody  carnage,  and  saved  the  threatened  victims  of  our  too 
keen  resentment,  not  by  their  discipline,  not  by  their  regular  array, — 
no,  it  was  royal  George's  livery  that  proved  their  shield — it  was  that 
which  turned  the  pointed  engines  of  destruction  from  their  breasts. 
The  thoughts  of  vengeance  were  soon  buried  in  our  inbred  affection  to 
Great  Britain,  and  calm  reason  dictated  a  method  of  removing  the 
troops  more  mild  than  an  immediate  resource  to  the  sword.  With 
united  efforts  you  urged  the  immediate  departure  of  the  troops  from 


42  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

the  town — you  urged  it,  with  a  resolution  which  ensured  success — you 
obtained  your  wishes,  and  the  removal  of  the  troops  was  effected, 
without  one  drop  of  their  blood  being  shed  by  the  inhabitants. 

The  immediate  actors  in  the  tragedy  of  that  night  were  surrendered 
to  justice.  It  is  not  mine  to  say  how  far  they  were  guilty  ?  they  have 
been  tried  by  the  country  and  acquitted  of  murder  !  and  they  are  not 
to  be  again  arraigned  at  an  earthly  bar  ;  but,  surely  the  men  who  have 
promiscuously  scattered  death  amidst  the  innocent  inhabitants  of  a 
populous  city,  ought  to  see  well  to  it  that  they  be  prepared  to  stand 
at  the  bar  of  an  omniscient  judge  !  and  all  who  contrived  or  encour 
aged  the  stationing  troops  in  this  place  have  reasons  of  eternal  import 
ance,  to  reflect  with  deep  contrition,  on  their  base  designs,  and  num 
bly  to  repent  of  their  impious  machinations. 

The  infatuation  which  hath  seemed,  for  a  number  of  years,  to  pre 
vail  in  the  British  councils,  with  regard  to  us,  is  truly  astonishing  ! 
what  can  be  proposed  by  the  repeated  attacks  made  upon  our  freedom, 
I  really  cannot  surmise  ;  even  leaving  justice  and  humanity  out  of 
question.  I  do  not  know  one  single  advantage  which  can  arise  to  the 
British  nation,  from  our  being  enslaved: — I  know  not  of  any  gains, 
which  can  be  wrung  from  us  by  oppression,  which  they  may  not  ob 
tain  from  us  by  our  own  consent,  in  the  smooth  channel  of  commerce  : 
we  wish  the  wealth  and  prosperity  of  Britain  ;  we  contribute  largely 
to  both.  Doth  what  we  contribute  lose  all  its  Value,  because  it  is  done 
voluntarily  ?  the  amazing  increase  of  riches  to  Britain,  the  great 
rise  of  the  value  of  her  lands,  the  flourishing  state  of  her  navy,  are 
striking  proofs  of  the  advantages  derived  to  her  from  her  commerce 
with  the  colonies;  and  it  is  our  earnest  desire  that  she  may  still  con 
tinue  to  enjoy  the  same  emoluments,  until  her  streets  are  paved  with 
American  gold;  only  let  us  have  the  pleasure  of  calling  it  our  own, 
while  it  is  in  our  own  hands;  but  this  it  seems  is  too  great  a  favor — we 
are  to  be  governed  by  the  absolute  command  of  others;  our  property  is 
to  be  taken  aiuay  without  our  consent — if  we  complain,  our  complaints 
are  treated  with  contempt;  if  we  assert  our  rights,  that  assertion  is 
deemed  insolence;  if  we  humbly  offer  to  submit  the  matter  to  the 
impartial  decision  of  reason,  the  sword  is  judged  the  most  proper 
argument  to  silence  our  murmurs!  but  this  cannot  long  be  the  case — 
surely  the  British  nation  will  not  suffer  the  reputation  of  their  justice 
and  their  honor,  to  be  thus  sported  away  by  a  capricious  ministry;  no, 
they  will  in  a  short  time  open  their  eyes  to  their  true  interest:  they 
nourish  in  their  own  breasts,  a  noble  love  of  liberty;  they  hold  her 
dear,  and  they  know  that  all  who  have  once  possessed  her  charms,  had 
rather  die  than  suffer  her  to  be  torn  from  their  embraces — they  are  also 
sensible  that  Britain  is  so  deeply  interested  in  the  prosperity  of  the 
colonies  that  she  must  eventually  feel  every  wound  given  to  their  free 
dom;  they  cannot  be  ignorant  that  more  dependence  may  be  placed  on 
the  affections  of  a  brother,  than  on  the  forced  service  of  a  slave;  they 


JOSEPH    WARREN.  43 

must  approve  your  efforts  for  the  preservation  of  your  rights;  from  a 
sympathy  of  soul  they  must  pray  for  your  success:  and  I  doubt  not 
but  they  will,  ere  long,  exert  themselves  effectually,  to  redress  your 
grievances.  Even  the  dissolute  reign  of  king  Charles  II.  when  the 
House  of  Commons  impeached  the  Earl  of  Clarendon  of  high  treason, 
the  first  article  on  which  they  founded  their  accusation  was  that  "  lie 
had  designed  a  standing  army  to  be  raised,  and  to  govern  tfu  kingdom 
thereby"  And  the  eighth  article  was,  that  "  he  had  introduced  an  arbi 
trary  government  info  His  Majesty  s  plantatioti."  A  terrifying  example 
to  those  who  are  no\v  forging  chains  for  this  country. 

You  have,  my  friends  and  countrymen,  frustrated  the  designs  of 
your  enemies,  by  your  unanimity  and  fortitude:  it  was  your  union  and 
determined  spirit  which  expelled  those  troops,  who  polluted  your 
streets  with  innocent  blood.  You  have  appointed  this  anniversary  as 
a  standard  memorial  of  the  bloody  consequences  of  placing  an  armed  force 
in  a  populous  city,  and  of  your  deliverance  from  the  dangers  which  then 
seemed  to  hang  over  your  heads;  and  I  am  confident  that  you  never 
will  betray  the  least  want  of  spirit  when  called  upon  to  guard  your 
freedom.  None  but  they  who  set  a  just  value  upon  the  blessings  of 
liberty  are  worthy  to  enjoy  her — your  illustrious  fathers  were  her 
zealous  votaries — when  the  blasting  frowns  of  tyranny  drove  her  from 
public  view,  they  clasped  her  in  their  arms,  they  cherished  her  in  their 
generous  bosoms,  they  brought  her  safe  over  the  rough  ocean,  and 
fixed  her  seat  in  this  then  dreary  wilderness;  they  nursed  her  infant 
age  with  the  most  tender  care;  for  her  sake  they  patiently  bore  the 
severest  hardships;  for  her  support,  they  underwent  the  most  rugged 
toils;  in  her  defence  they  boldly  encountered  the  most  alarming  dan 
gers:  neither  the  ravenous  beasts  that  ranged  the  woods  for  prey,  nor 
the  more  furious  savages  of  the  wilderness,  could  damp  their  ardor  ! — 
Whilst  with  one  hand  they  broke  the  stubborn  glebe,  with  the  other 
they  grasped  their  weapons,  ever  ready  to  protect  her  fiom  danger. 
No  sacrifice,  not  even  their  own  blood",  was  esteemed  loo  rich  a  liba 
tion  for  her  altar!  God  prospered  their  valor:  they  preserved  her 
brilliancy  unsullied;  they  enjoyed  her  whilst  they  lived,  and  dying, 
bequeathed  the  dear  inheritance  to  your  care.  And  as  they  left  you 
this  glorious  legacy,  they  have  undoubtedly  transmitted  to  you  some 
portion  of  their  noble  spirit,  to  inspire  you  with  virtue  to  merit  her, 
and  courage  to  preserve  her:  you  surely  cannot,  with  such  examples 
before  your  eyes,  as  every  page  of  the  history  of  this  country  affords, 
suffer  your  liberties  to  be  ravished  from  you  by  lawless  force,  or 
cajoled  away  by  flattery  and  fraud. 

The  voice  of  your  fathers'  blood  cries  to  you  from  the  ground,  my 
sons  scorn  to  be  slaves!  in  vain  we  met  the  frowns  of  tyrants — in  vain 
we  crossed  the  boiste.rous  ocean,  found  a  new  world,  and  prepared  it 
for  the  happy  residence  of  liberty — in  vain  we  toiled — in  vain  we  fought 
— we  bled  in  vain,  if  you,  our  offspring,  want  valor  to  rspel  the  assaults 


44  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

of  her  invaders! Stain  not  the  glory  of  your  worthy  ancestors, 

but  like  them  resolve  never  to  part  with  your  birth-right;  be  wise  in 
your  deliberations,  and  determined  in  your  exertions  for  the  preserva 
tion  of  your  liberties.  Follow  not  the  dictates  of  passion,  but  enlist 
yourselves  under  the  sacred  banner  of  reason;  use  every  method  in 
your  power  to  secure  your  rights;  at  least  prevent  the  curses  of  pos 
terity  from  being  heaped  upon  your  memories. 

If  you,  with  united  zeal  and  fortitude,  oppose  the  torrent  of  oppres 
sion;  if  you  feel  the  true  fire  of  patriotism  burning  in  your  breasts;  if 
you,  from  your  souls,  despise  the  most  gaudy  dress  that  slavery  can 
wear;  if  you  really  prefer  the  lonely  cottage  (whilst  blest  with  liberty) 
to  gilded  palaces,  surrounded  with  the  ensigns  of  slavery,  you  may 
have  the  fullest  assurance  that  tyranny,  with  her  whole  accursed  train, 
will  hide  their  hideous  heads  in  confusion,  shame,  and  despair — if  you 
perform  your  part,  you  must  have  the  strongest  confidence  that  the 
same  Almighty  Being  who  protected  your  pious  and  venerable  fore 
fathers — who  enabled  them  to  turn  a  barren  wilderness  into  a  fruitful 
field,  who  so  often  made  bare  his  arm  for  their  salvation,  will  still  be 
mindful  of  you,  their  offspring. 

May  this  Almighty  Being  graciously  preside  in  r.ll  our  councils. 
May  he  direct  us  to  such  measures  as  he  himself  shall  approve,  and  be 
pleased  to  bless.  May  we  ever  be  a  people  favored  of  God.  May  our 
land  be  a  land  of  liberty,  the  seat  of  virtue,  the  asylum  of  the  oppressed, 
a  name  and  a  praise  in  the  whole  earth,  until  the  last  shock  of  time 
shall  bury  the  empires  of  the  world  in  one  common  undistinguished 
ruin! 


ESSAY  ON  THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  POWER  OF  GREAT 
BRITAIN. 

JOHN  DICKINSON. 

Philadelphia^  August  i,  1774. 

The  authority  of  Parliament  has  within  these  few  years  been  a 
question  much  agitated;  and  great  difficulty,  we  understand  has  oc 
curred,  in  tracing  the  line  between  the  rights  of  the  mother  country 
and  those  of  the  colonies.  The  modern  doctrine  of  the  former  is  in 
deed  truly  remarkable;  for  though  it  points  out,  what  are  not  our 
rights,  yet  we  can  never  learn  from  it,  what  are  our  rights.  As, 
for  example,  Great-Britain  claims  a  right  to  take  away  nine-tenths 
of  our  estates — have  we  a  right  to  the  remaining  tenth?  No. — To 


JOh'K  .VfCKINSON.  45 

say  we  have,  is  a  "traitorous"  position,  denying  her  supreme  legis- 
lacure.  So  far  from  having  prupeity,  according  to  these  late  found 
novels,  we  are  ourselves  a  propcriy. 

We  pretend  not  to  any  considerable  share  of  learning;  but,  thanks 
be  to  divine  goodness,  common  sense,  experience,  and  some  acquaint 
ance  with  the  constitution,  teach  us  a  f<j,v  salutary  truths  on  this  im 
portant  subject. 

Whatever  difficulty  may  occur  in  tracing  the  line,  yet  we  contend, 
that  by  the  laws  of  God,  and  by  the  laws  of  the  constitution,  a  line 
there  must  be,  beyond  which  her  authority  cannot  extend.  For  ail 
these  laws  are  "  grounded  on  reason,  full  of  justice,  and  true  equity," 
mild,  and  calculated  to  promote  the  freedom  and  welfare  of  men. 
These  objects  never  can  be  attained  by  abolishing  every  restriction, 
on  the  part  of  the  governors,  and  extinguishing  every  right,  on  the 
part  of  the  governed. 

Suppose  it  be  allowed,  that  the  line  is  not  expressly  drawn,  is  it 
thence  to  be  concluded,  there  is  no  implied  line  ?  No  English  lawyer, 
we  presume,  will  venture  to  mak'e  the  bold  assertion.  "  The  King 
may  reject  what  bills,  may  make  what  treaties,  may  coin  what  money, 
may  create  what  peers,  and  may  pardon  what  offences,  he  pleases." 
But  is  his  prerogative  respecting  these  branches  of  it,  unlimited?  By 
no  means.  The  words  following  those  next  above  quoted  from  the 
"commentaries  on  the  laws  of  England,"  are — "unless  where  the 
constitution  hath  expressly,  or  by  evident  consequence,  laid  down 
some  exception  or  boundary,  declaring,  that  thus  far  the  prerogative 
shall  go  and  no  farther."  There  are  "some  boundaries"  then,  be 
sides  the  "express  exceptions;"  and  according  to  the  strong  expres 
sion  here  used,  "the  constitution  declares  they  are."  What  "evident 
consequence"  forms  those  "boundaries?" 

The  happiness  of  the  people  is  the  end,  and,  if  the  term  is  allowa 
ble,  we  would  call  it  the  body  of  the  constitution.  Freedom  is  the 
spirit  or  soul.  As  the  soul,  speaking  of  nature,  has  a  right  to  prevent 
or  relieve,  if  it  can,  any  mischief  to  the  body  of  the  individual,  and  lo 
keep  it  in  the  best  health;  so  the  soul,  speaking  of  the  constitution, 
has  a  right  to  prevent,  or  relieve,  any  mischief  to  the  body  of  the 
society,  and  to  keep  that  in  the  best  health.  The  "evident  conse 
quence"  mentioned,  must  mean  a  tendency  to  injure  this  health,  that 
is,  to  diminish  the  happiness  of  the  people — or  it  must  mean  nothing. 
If  therefore,  the  constitution  "declares  by  evident  consequence;"  that 
a  tendency  to  diminish  the  happiness  of  the  people,  is  a  proof,  that 
power  exceeds  a  "boundary,"  beyond  which  it  ought  not  to  "go;" 
the  matter  is  brought  to  this  single  point,  whether  taking  our  money 
from  us  without  our  consent,  depriving  us  o/  trial  by  jury,  changing 
constitutions  of  government,  and  abolishing  the  privilege  of  the  writ 
of  habeas  corpus,  by  seizing  and  carrying  us  to  England,  have  not  a 
greater  tendency  to  diminish  our  happiness,  than  any  enormities  a 


46  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

King  can  commit  under  pretence  of  prerogative,  can  have  to  diminish 
the  happiness  of  the  subjects  in  England.  To  come  to  a  decision 
upon  this  point,  no  long  time  need  be  required.  To  make  this  com 
parison,  is  stating  the  claim  of  Parliament  in  the  most  favorable  light: 
For  it  puts  the  assumed  power  of  Parliament,  to  do,  "in  all  cases 
whatsoever,"  what  they  p.ease,  upon  the  same  footing  with  the  ac 
knowledged  power  of  the  King,  "  to  make  what  peers — pardon  what 
offences,  etc.,  he  pleases."  But  in  this  light,  that  power  is  not  entitled 
to  be  viewed.  Such  is  the  wisdom  of  the  English  constitution,  that  it 
"  declares"  the  King  may  transgress  a  "  boundary  laid  down  by  evi 
dent  consequence,"  even  by  using  the  power  with  which  he  is  expressly 
vested  by  the  constitution,  in  doing  those  very  acts  which  he  is  ex 
pressly  trusted  by  the  constitution  to  do— as  by  creating  too  many  or 
improper  persons,  peers;  or  by  pardoning  too  many  or  too  great  of 
fences,  etc.  But  has  the  constitution  of  England  expressly  "de 
clared,"  that  the  Parliament  of  Great-Britain  may  take  away  the 
money  of  English  colonists  without  their  consent,  and  deprive  them 
of  trial  by  jury,  etc.?  It  cannot  be  pretended.  True  it  is,  that  it  has 
been  solemnly  declared  by  Parliament,  that  Parliament  has  such  a 
power.  But  that  declaraction  leaves  the  point  just  as  it  was  before: 
For  if  Parliament  had  not  the  power  before,  the  declaration  could  not 
give  it.  Indeed  if  Parliament  is  really  "omnipotent,"  that  power  is 
just  and  constitutional.  We  further  observe,  that  no  English  lawyer, 
as  we  remember,  has  pointed  out  precisely  the  line  beyond  which,  if 
a  king,  shall  "go,"  resistance  becomes  lawful.  General  terms  have 
been  used.  The  learned  author  of  those  commentaries,  that  notwith 
standing  some  human  frailties,  do  him  so  much  honor,  has  thought 
proper,  when  treating  of  this  subject,  to  point  out  the  "  precedent"  of 
the  revolution,  as  fixing  the  line.  We  would  not  venture  any  reflexion 
on  so  great  a  man.  It  may  not  become  us.  Nor  can  we  be  provoked 
by  his  expressions  concerning  colonists;  because  they  perhaps  con 
tain  his  real,  though  hasty  sentiments.  Surely,  it  was  not  his  inten 
tion  to  condemn  those  excellent  men,  who  casting  'every  tender 
consideration  behind  them,  nobly  presented  themselves  against  the 
tyranny  of  the  unfortunate  and  misguided  Charles's  reign;  those  men, 
whom  the  House  of  Commons,  even  after  the  restoration,  would  not 
suffer  to  be  censured. 

We  are  sensible  of  the  objection  that  may  be  made,  as  to  drawing  a 
line  between  rights  on  each  side,  and  the  case  of  a  plain  violation  of 
rights.  We  think  it  not  material.  Circumstances  have  actually  pro 
duced,  and  may  again  produce  this  question — What  conduct  of  a 
prince  renders  resistance  lawful  ?  James  the  second  and  his  father 
violated  express  rights  of  their  subjects,  by  doing  what  their  own  ex 
press  rights  gave  them  no  title  to  do,  and  by  raising  money,  and 
levying  troops,  without  consent  of  Parliament.  It  is  not  even  settled, 
what  violation  of  those  will  justify  resistance.  But  may  not  some 


JOHN  DICKINSON.  47 

future  prince  confining  himself  to  the  exercise  of  his  own  express 
rights,  such  as  have  been  mentioned,  act  in  a  manner,  that  will  be  a 
transgression  of  a  "  boundary"  laid  down  by  "  evident  consequence," 
the  "  constitution  declaring  he  should  go  no  further?"  May  not  this 
exercise  of  these  his  express  rights,  be  so  far  extended,  as  to  introduce 
universal  confusion  and  subversion  of  the  ends  of  government?  The 
whole  may  be  oppressive,  and  yet  any  single  instance  legal.  The 
cases  may  be  improbable;  but  we  have  seen  and  now  feel  events  once 
as  little  expected.  Is  it  not  possible,  that  one  of  these  cases  may 
happen  ?  If  it  does,  has  the  constitution  expressly  drawn  a  line,  be 
yond  which  resistance  becomes  lawful?  It  has  not.  But  it  may  be 
said,  a  king  cannot  arm  against  his  subjects — he  cannot  raise  money, 
without  consent  of  Parliament.  This  is  the  constitutional  check  upon 
him.  If  he  should,  it  would  be  a  violation  of  their  express  rights.  If 
their  purses  are  shut,  his  power  shrinks.  True.  Unhappy  colonists! 
Our  money  may  be  taken  from  us — and  standing  armies  established 
over  us,  without  our  consent — every  expressly  declared  constitutional 
check  dissolve],  and  the  modes  of  opposition  for  relief  so  contracted, 
as  to  leave  us  only  the  miserable  alternative  of  supplication  or  violence. 
And  these,  it  seems,  are  the  liberties  of  Americans.  Because  the 
constitution  has  not  "expressly  declared"  the  line  between  the  rights 
of  the  mother  country  and  those  of  her  colonists,  therefore,  the  latter 
have  no  rights.  A  logic,  equally  edifying  to  the  heads  and  hearts  of 
men  of  sense  and  humanity. 

We  assert,  a  line  there  must  be,  and  shall  now  proceed  with  great 
deference  to  the  judgment  of  others,  to  trace  that  line,  according 
to  the  ideas  we  entertain:  And  it  is  with  satisfaction  we  can  say, 
that  the  records,  statutes,  law-books,  and  most  approved  writers  of 
our  mother  country,  those  "dead  but  most  faithful  counsellors"  (as 
Sir  Edward  Coke  calls  them)  "who  cannot  be  daunted  by  fear,  nor 
muzzled  by  affection,  reward,  or  hope  of  preferment,  and  therefore 
may  safely  be  believed,"  confirm  the  principles  we  maintain. 

Liberty,  life,  or  property,  can,  with  no  consistency  of  words  or 
ideas,  be  termed  a  right  of  the  possessors,  while  others  have  a  right 
of  taking  them  away  at  pleasure.  The  most  distinguished  authors, 
that  have  written  on  government,  declare  it  to  be  "  instituted  for  the 
benefit  of  the  people;  and  that  it  never  will  have  this  tendency,  where 
it  is  unlimited."  Even  conquest  itself  is  held  not  to  destroy  all  the 
rights  of  the  conquered.  Such  is  the  merciful  reverence  judged  by  the 
best  and  wisest  men  to  be  due  to  human  nature,  and  frequently  ob 
served  even  by  conquerers  themselves. 

In  fine,  a  power  of  government,  in  its  nature  tending  to  the  misery 
of  the_  people,  as  a  power  that  is  unlimited,  or  in  other  words,  a  power 
in  which  the  people  have  no  share,  is  proved  to  be,  by  reason  and  the 
experience  of  all  ages  and  countries,  cannot  be  a  rightful  or  legal 
power:  For,  as  an  excellent  Bishop  of  the  Church  of  England  argues, 


48  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

"the  ends  of  government  cannot  be  answered  by  a  total  dissolution 
of  all  happiness  at  present,  and  of  all  hopes  for  the  future." 

The  just  inference  therefore  from  these  premises  would  be  an  ex 
clusion  of  any  power  of  Parliament  over  these  colonies,  rather  than 
the  admission  of  an  unbounded  power. 

We  well  know,  that  the  colonists  are  charged  by  many  persons  in 
Great-Britain,  with  attempting  to  obtain  such  an  exclusion  and  a  total 
independence  of  her.  As  well  wre  know  the  accusation  to  be  utterly 
false.  We  are  become  criminal  in  the  sight  of  such  persons,  by  re 
fusing  to  be  guilty  of  the  highest  crime  against  ourselves  and  our 
posterity.  Nohtnnts  leges  Anglia  mutari.  This  is  the  rebellion  with 
which  we  are  stigmatized.  [We  have  committed  the  like  offence, 
that  was  objected  by  the  polite  and  humane  Fimbria  against  a  rude 
senator  of  his  time.  We  have  "  disrespectfully  refused  to  receive 
the  whole  weapon  into  our  body."  We  could  not  do  it.  and  live. 
But  that  must  be  acknowledged  to  be  a  poor  excuse,  equally  in 
consistent  with  good  breeding  and  the  supreme  legislature  of  Great- 
Britain.] 

For  these  ten  years  past  we  have  been  incessantly  attacked.  Hard 
is  our  fate,  when,  to  escape  the  character  of  rebels,  we  must  be  degraded 
into  that  of  slaves :  as  if  there  was  no  medium,  between  the  two  ex 
tremes  of  anarchy  and  despotism,  where  innocence  and  freedom  could 
find  repose  and  safety. 

Why  should  we  be  exhibited  to  mankind,  as  a  people  adjudged  by 
Parliament  unworthy  of  freedom?  The  thought  alone  is  insupporta 
ble.  Even  those  unhappy  persons,  who  have  had  the  misfortune  of 
being  born  under  the  yoke  of  bondage,  imposed  by  the  cruel  laws,  if 
they  may  be  called  laws,  of  the  land,  where  they  received  their  birth, 
no  sooner  breathe  the  air  of  England,  though  they  touch  her  shore  only 
by  accident,  than  they  instantly  become  freemen.  Strange  contradic 
tion.  The  same  kingdom  at  the  same  time,  the  asylum  and  the  bane 
of  liberty. 

To  return  to  the  charge  against  xis,  we  can  safely  appeal  to  that 
Being,  from  whom  no  thought  can  be  concealed,  that  our  warmest  wish 
and  utmost  ambition  is,  that  we  and  our  posterity  may  ever  remain  sub 
ordinate  to,  and  dependent  upon  our  parent  state.  This  submission 
our  reason  approves,  our  affection  dictates,  our  duty  commands,  and 
our  interest  enforces. 

If  thi»  submission  indeed  implies  a  dissolution  of  our  constitution, 
and  a  renunciation  of  our  liberty,  we  should  be  unworthy  of  our  relation 
to  her,  if  we  should  not  frankly  declare,  that  we  regard  it  with  horror; 
and  every  true  Englishman  will  applaud  this  just  distinction  and  candid 
declaration.  [Our  defence  necessarily  touches  chords  in  unison  with 
the  fibres  of  his  honest  heart.  They  must  vibrate  in  sympathetic  tones. 
If  we,  his  kindred,  should  be  base  enough  to  promise  the  humiliating 
subjection,  he  could  not  believe  us.  We  should  suffer  all  the  infamy  of 


JOHN  DICKINSON.  49 

the  engagement,  without  finding  the  benefit  expected  from  being  thought 
as  contemptible  as  we  should  undertake  to  be.] 

But  this  submission  implies  not  such  insupportable  evils:  and  our 
amazement  is  inexpressible,  when  we  consider  the  gradual  increase  of 
these  colonies,  from  their  slender  beginnings  in  the  last  century  to  their 
late  flourishing  condition,  and  how  prodigiously,  since  their  settlement, 
our  parent  state  has  advanced  in  wealth,  force  and  influence,  till  she  is 
become  the  first  power  on  the  sea,  and  the  envy  of  the  world — that  these 
our  better  days  should  not  strike  conviction  into  every  mind,  that  the 
freedom  and  happiness  of  the  colonists  are  not  consistent  with  her 
authority  and  prosperity. 

The  experience  of  more  than  one  hundred  years  will  surely  be 
deemed,  by  wise  men,  to  have  some  weight  in  the  scale  of  evidence  to 
support  our  opinion.  We  might  justly  ask  of  her,  why  we  are  not  per 
mitted  to  go  on,  as  we  have  been  used  to  do  since  our  existence,  con 
ferring  mutual  benefits,  thereby  strengthening  each  other,  more  and 
more  discovering  the  reciprocal  advantages  of  our  connection,  and 
daily  cultivating  affections,  encouraged  by  those  advantages? 

[What  unknown  offences  have  we  committed  against  her  within  these 
ten  years,  to  provoke  such  an  unexampled  change  in  her  conduct  towards 
us?  In  the  last  war,  she  acknowledged  us  repeatedly,  to  be  faithful, 
dutiful,  zealous  and  useful  in  her  cause.  Is  it  criminal  in  us,  that  our 
iiumbers,  by  the  favor  of  Divine  Providence  have  greatly  increased? 
That  the  poor  choose  to  fly  from  their  native  countries  in  Europe  to 
this  continent?  Or,  that  we  have  so  much  improved  these  woods,  that 
if  we  cau  be  forced  into  an  unsuccessful  resistance,  avarice  itself  might 
be  satiated  with  our  forfeitures  ? 

It  cannot  with  truth  be  urged,  that  projects  of  innovation  have  com 
menced  with  us.  Facts  and  their  dates  prove  the  contrary.  Not  a  dis 
turbance  has  happened  on  any  part  of  this  continent,  but  in  consequence 
of  some  immediately  preceding  provocation. 

To  what  purpose  ?  The  charge  of  our  affecting  one  great,  or  many 
small  republics,  must  appear  as  contemptible  a  madness  to  her,  as  it 
does  to  us.  Divided  as  we  are  into  many  provinces,  and  incapable  of 
union,  except  against  a  common  danger,  she  knew,  that  we  could  no: 
think  of  embarking  our  treasures  of  tranquility  and  liberty,  on  an 
ocean  of  blood,  in  a  wandering  expedition  to  some  Utopian  port. 
The  history  of  mankind,  frcm  the  remotest  antiquity,  furnishes  not  a 
single  instance  of  a  people  consisting  of  husbandmen  and  merchants, 
voluntarily  engaging  in  such  a  frenzy  of  ambition.  No.  Our  highest 
pride  and  glory  has  been,  with  humble  unsuspecting  duty  to  labor  in 
contributing  to  elevate  her  to  that  exalted  station,  she  holds  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth,  and  which,  we  still  ardently  desire  and  pray, 
she  may  hold,  with  fresh  accessions  of  fame  and  prosperity,  till  time 
shall  be  no  more. 

These  being  our  sentiments,  and,  we  are  fully  convinced,  the  senti* 


5°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

ments  of  our  brethren  throughout  the  colonies,  with  unspeakable  af 
fliction,  we  find  ourselves  obliged  to  oppose  that  system  of  dominion 
over  us,  arising  from  counsels  pernicious  both  to  our  parent  and  her 
children — to  strive,  if  it  be  possible,  to  close  the  breaches  made  in  cur 
former  concord — and  stop  the  sources  of  future  animosities. — And 
may  God  Almighty,  who  delights  in  the  titles  of  just  and  merciful,  in 
cline  the  hearts  of  all  parties  to  that  equitable  and  benevolent  temper, 
which  is  necessary  solidly  to  establish  peace  and  harmony,  in  the 
place  of  confusion  and  dissension. 

The  legislative  authority  claimed  by  Parliament  over  these  colonies 
consists  of  two  heads — first,  a  general  power  of  internal  legislation  ; 
and  secondly,  a  power  of  regulating  our  trade:  both  she  contends  are 
unlimited.  Under  the  first,  may  be  included  among  other  powers, 
those  of  forbidding  us  to  worship  our  Creator  in  the  manner  we  think 
most  acceptable  to  him— imposing  taxes  on  us — collecting  them  by 
their  own  officers — enforcing  the  collection  by  admiralty  courts  or 
courts  martial — abolishing  trials  by  jury — establishing  a  standing- 
army  among  us  in  time  of  peace,  without  consent  of  our  Assemblies — 
paying  them  with  our  money — seizing  our  young  men  for  recruits — 
changing  constitutions  of  government — stopping  the  press — declaring 
any  action,  even  a  meeting  of  the  smallest  number,  to  consider  of 
peaceable  modes  to  obtain  redress  of  grievances  high  treason — taking 
colonists  to  Great  Britain  to  be  tried — exempting  "murderers"  of 
colonists  from  punishment,  by  carrying  them  to  England,  to  answer 
indictments  found  in  the  colonies — shutting  up  our  ports — pro 
hibiting  us  from  slitting  iron  to  build  our  houses — making  hats  to 
cover  our  heads,  or  clothing  to  cover  the  rest  of  our  bodies,  etc. 

In  our  provincial  legislatures,  the  best  judges  in  all  cases  what  suits 
us — founded  on  the  immutable  and  unalienable  rights  of  human 
nature,  the  principles  of  the  constitution,  and  charters  and  grams 
made  by  the  Crown  at  periods,  when  the  power  of  making  them  was 
universally  acknowledged  by  the  parent  state,  a  power  since  frequently 
recognized  by  her — subject  to  the  control  of  the  Crown  as  by  law  es 
tablished,  is  vested  the  exclusive  right  of  internal  legislation. 

Such  a  right  vested  in  Parliament,  would  place  us  exactly  in  the 
same  situation,  the  people  of  Great  Britain  would  have  been  reduced 
to,  had  James  the  first  and  his  family  succeeded  in  their  scheme  of 
arbitrary  power.  Changing  the  word  Stuarts  for  Parliament,  and 
Britons  for  Americans,  the  arguments  of  the  illustrious  patriots  of 
those  times,  to  whose  virtues  their  descendants  owe  every  blessing 
they  now  enjoy,  apply  with  inexpressible  force  and  appositeness,  in 
maintenance  of  our  cause,  and  in  refutation  of  the  pretension  set  up 
by  their  too  forgetful  posterity,  over  their  unhappy  colonists.  Con, 
fiding  in  the  undeniable  truth  of  this  single  position,  that,  "  to  live  by 
one  man's  will,  became  the  cause  of  all  men's  misery,"  they  generously 
suffered. — And  the  worthy  bishop  before  mentioned,  who,  for  strenu-, 


JOHN  DICKINSON.  51 

ousiy  asserting  the  principles  of  the  revolution,  received  the  unusual 
honor  of  being  recommended  by  a  House  of  Commons  to  the  sovereign 
for  perferment,  has  justly  observed,  that  "  misery  is  the  same  whether 
it  comes  from  the  hands  of  many  or  of  one." 

"  It  could  not  appear  tolerable  to  him  (meaning  Mr.  Hooker,  author 
of  the  ecclesiastical  policy)  to  lodge  in  the  governors  of  any  society  an 
unlimited  authority,  to  annul  and  alter  the  constitution  of  the  govern 
ment,  as  they  should  see  fit,  and  to  leave  to  the  governed  the  privilege 
only  of  absolute  subjection  in  all  such  alterations;  or  to  use  the  Par 
liamentary  phrase,  "  in  all  cases  whatsoever." 

From  what  source  can  Great  Britain  derive  a  single  reason  to  sup- 
port  her  claim  to  such  an  enormous  power?  That  it  is  consistent 
with  the  laws  of  nature,  no  reasonable  man  will  pretend.  That  it 
contradicts  the  precepts  of  Christianity,  is  evident.  For  she  strives  to 
force  upon  us,  terms,  which  she  would  judge  to  be  intolerably  severe 
and  cruel,  if  imposed  on  herself.  "Virtual  representation,"  is  too 
ridiculous  to  be  regarded.  The  necessity  of  a  supreme  sovereign  leg 
islature  internally  superintending  the  whole  empire,  is  a  notion  equally 
unjust  and  dangerous.  "The  pretence  (says  Mr.  Justice  Blackstone 
speaking  of  James  the  first's  reign)  for  which  arbitrary  measures  AVO.S 
no  other  than  the  tyrant's  plea  of  the  necessity  of  unlimited  powers, 
in  works  of  evident  utility  to  the  public,  the  supreme  reason  above  all 
reasons,  which  is  the  salvation  of  the  king's  lands  and  people."  This 
was  not  the  doctrine  of  James  only.  His  son  unhappily  inherited  it 
from  him.  On  this  flimsy  foundation  was  built  the  claim  of  ship 
money,  etc.  Nor  were  there  wanting  men,  v/ho  could  argue,  from  the 
courtly  text,  that  Parliaments  were  too  stupid  or  too  factious  to  grant 
money  to  the  Crown,  when  it  was  their  interest  and  their  duty  to  do 
so.  This  argument  however,  was  fully  refuted,  and  slept  above  a 
century  in  proper  contempt,  till  the  posterity  of  those,  who  had  over 
thrown  it,  thought  fit  to  revive  the  exploded  absurdity.  Trifling  as 
the  pretence  was,  yet  it  might  much  more  properly  be  urged  in  favor 
of  a  single  person,  than  of  a  multitude.  The  counsels  of  a  monarch 
may  be  more  secret.  His  measures  more  quick.  In  passing  an  act 
of  Parliament  for  all  the  colonies,  as  many  men  are  consulted,  if  not 
more,  than  need  be  consulted,  in  obtaining' the  assent  of  every  legisla 
ture  on  the  continent.  If  it  is  a  good  argument  for  Parliament,  it  is  a 
better  against  them.  It  therefore  proves  nothing  but  its  own  futility. 
The  suppose  1  advantages  of  such  a  power,  could  never  be  attained  but 
by  the  destruction  of  real  benefits,  evidenced  by  facts  to  exist  without  it. 
_Ihe  Swiss  Cantons,  and  the  United  Provinces,  are  combinations  of 
independent  states.  The  voice  of  each  must  be  given.  The  instance 
of  these  colonies  may  be  added:  For  stating  the  case,  that  no  act  of 
internal  legislation  over  them  had  ever  been  passed  by  Great  Britain, 
her  wisest  statesmen  would  be  perplexed  to  show,  that  she  or  the 
colonies  would  have  been  less  flourishing  than  they  now  are.  What 


52  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

benefits  such  a  power  may  produce  hereafter,  time  will  discover.  But 
the  colonies  are  not  dependent  on  Great  Britain,  it  is  said,  if  she  has 
not  a  supreme  unlimited  legislature  over  them.  "  I  would  ask  these 
loyal  subjects  of  the  king  (says  the  author  of  a  celebrated  invective 
against  us)  what  king  it  is,  they  profess  themselves  to  be  loyal  subjects 
of  ?  It  cannot  be  his  present  most  gracious  majesty,  George  the 
third,  king  of  Great  Britain,  for  his  title  is  founded  on  an  act  of  Par 
liament,  and  they  will  not  surely  acknowledge  that  Parliament  can 
give  them  a  king,  which  is  of  all  others,  the  highest  act  of  sovereignty, 
when  they  deny  it  to  have  power  to  tax  or  bind  them  in  any  other 
case;  and  I  do  not  recollect,  that  there  is  any  act  of  Assembly,  in  any 
of  the  colonies  for  settling  the  crown  upon  king  William  or  the  illus 
trious  House  of  Hanover."  "  Curious  reasoning  this."  It  is  to  be 
wished  the  gentleman  had  "recollected"  that  without  any  such  "act 
of  Assembly"  none  of  the  colonists  ever  rebelled.  What  act  of  Parlia 
ment  is  here  meant?  Surely  not  the  nth  of  Henry  the  seventh, 
chapter  ist,  in  favor  of  a  king  de  facto.  Probably  the  I2th  and  I3th 
of  William  the  3d  chapter,  the  2d,  "for  the  further  limitation  of  the 
Crown,  etc."  is  intended.  And,  is  it  imagined  that  the  words  "  domin 
ions  and  territories  thereunto  belonging"  in  that  statute,  form  his 
Majesty's  title  to  the  sovereignty  of  these  colonies  ?  The  omission  of 
them  might  have  looked  odd;  but  what  force  is  added  by  their  inser 
tion?  The  settlement  of  the  crown  of  England  includes  the  settle 
ment  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  colonies.  King  William  is  mentioned — 
and  will  the  gentleman  venture  to  say,  that  William  was  not  king  of 
England  and  sovereign  of  these  colonies,  before  his  title  was  "  de 
clared"  or  "recognized"  by  "an  act  of  Parliament?"  The  gentleman 
slurs  over  this  case.  His  zeal  for  the  "  illustrious  House  of  Hanover" 
would  be  little  gratified,  by  inferring,  that  because  the  two  houses  with 
the  consent  of  the  nation,  made  a  king,  therefore  the  two  houses  can 
make  laws.  Yet  that  conclusion  would  be  as  justifiable  as  this — that 
the  assent  of  the  colonies  to  an  election  of  a  king  by  the  two  houses, 
or  to  the  limitation  of  the  Crown  by  act  of  Parliament,  proves  a  right 
in  Parliament  to  bind  the  colonies  by  statutes  "  in  all  cases  whatso 
ever."  In  such  great  points,  the  conduct  of  a  people  is  influenced 
solely  by  a  regard  for  their  freedom  and  happiness.  The  colonies 
have  no  other  head  than  the  king  of  England.  The  person  who  by 
the  laws  of  that  realm,  is  king  of  that  realm,  is  our  king. 

A  dependence  on  the  Crown  and  Parliament  of  Great  Britain,  is  a 
novelty — a  dreadful  novelty.  It  may  be  compared  to  the  engine  in 
vented  by  the  Greeks  for  the  destruction  of  Troy.  It  is  full  of  armed 
enemies,  and  the  walls  of  the  constitution  must  be  thrown  down,  be 
fore  it  can  be  introduced  among  us. 

When  it  is  considered  that  the  king  as  king  of  England  has  a  power 
i-n  making  laws — the  power  of  executing  them— of  finally  determining 
on  appeals — of  calling  upon  us  for  supplies  in  times  of  war  or  any 


JOHN  DICKINSON.  53 

emergency — that  every  branch  of  the  prerogative  binds  us,  as  the  sub 
jects  are  bound  thereby  in  England — and  that  all  our  intercourse  with 
foreigners  is  regulated  by  Parliament. — Colonists  may  "  surely"  be 
acknowledged  to  speak  with  truth,  and  precision,  in  answer  to  the 
"  elegantly"  expressed  question — "  What  king  it  is"  etc.  by  saying 
that  ''  his  most  gracious  majesty  George  the  third"  is  the  king  of 
England,  and  therefore,  "the  king"  they — profess  themselves  to  be 
loyal  subjects  of? 

We  are  aware  of  the  objection,  that,  "  if  the  king  of  England  is 
therefore  king  of  the  colonies,  they  are  subject  to  the  general  legisla 
tive  authority  of  that  kingdom."  The  premises  by  no  means  warrant 
this  conclusion.  It  is  built  on  a  mere  supposition,  that,  the  colonies 
are  thereby  acknowledged  ,to  be  within  the  realm,  and  on  an  incanta 
tion  expected  to  be  wrought  by  some  magic  force  in  those  words.  To 
be  subordinately  connected  with  England,  the  colonies  have  con 
tracted.  To  be  subject  to  the  general  legislative  authority  of  that 
kingdom,  they  never  contracted.  Such  a  power  as  may  be  necessary 
to  preserve  this  connection  she  has.  The  authority  of  the  sovereign, 
and  the  authority  of  controlling  our  intercourse  with  foreign  nations 
form  that  power.  Such  a  power  leaves  the  colonies  free.  But  a 
general  legislative  power,  is  not  a  power  to  preserve  that  connection, 
but  to  distress  and  enslave  them.  If  the  first  power  cannot  subsist, 
without  the  last,  she  has  no  right  even  to  the  first — the  colonies  were 
deceived  in  their  contract — and  the  power  must  be  unjust  and  illegal; 
for  God  has  given  to  them  a  better  right  to  preserve  their  liberty,  than 
to  her  to  destroy  it.  In  other  words,  supposing,  king,  lords  and 
commons  acting  in  Parliament,  constitute  a  sovereignty  over  the 
colonies,  is  that  sovereignty  constitutionally  absolute  or  limited  ? 
That  states  without  freedom,  should  by  principle  grow  out  of  a  free 
state,  is  as  impossible,  as  that  sparrows  should  be  produced  from 
the  eggs  of  an  eagle.  The  sovereignty  over  the  colonies,  must  be 
limited.  Hesiod  long  since  said,  "  half  is  better  than  the  whole;"  and 
the  saying  never  was  more  justly  applicable,  than  on  the  present  oc 
casion.  Had  the  unhappy  Charles  remembered  and  regarded  it,  his 
private  virtues  might  long  have  adorned  a  throne,  from  which  his 
public  measures  precipitated  him  in  blood.  To  argue  on  this  subject 
from  other  instances  of  parliamentary  power,  is  shifting  the  ground. 
The  connexion  of  the  colonies  with  England,  is  a  point  of  an  unprec 
edented  and  delicate  nature.  It  can  be  compared  to  no  other  case; 
and  to  receive  a  just  determination,  it  must  be  considered  with  refer 
ence  to  its  own  peculiar  circumstances.  The  common  law  extends 
to  colonies;  yet  Mr.  Justice  Blackstone  says,  "  such  parts  of  the  law 
as  are  neither  necessary  nor  convenient  for  them,  as  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  spiritual  courts,  etc.  are  therefore  not  in  force.  If  even  the 
common  law,  in  force  within  the  realm  of  England  when  the  colonists 
quitted  it,  is  thus  abridged  by  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  colonies, 


54  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

at  least  equally  just,  and  constitutional  is  it,  that  the  power  of  making 
new  laws  within  the  realm  of  England,  should  be  abridged  with  re 
spect  to  colonies,  by  those  peculiar  circumstances. 

The  laws  of  England  with  respect  to  prerogative,  and  in  other  in 
stances,  have  accommodated  themselves,  without  alteration  by  statutes 
to  a  change  of  circumstances,  the  welfare  of  the  people  so  requiring. 
A  regard  for  that  grand  object  perpetually  animates  the  constitution, 
and  regulates  all  its  movements — unless  unnatural  obstructions  inter 
fere— 

"  Spiritus  intus  a/if,  totamqiie  infusa  perartus 
"  Mcns  agitat  molcm,  6°  magno  sc  corpore  miscet" 

Another  argument  for  the  extravagant  power  of  internal  legislation 
over  us  remains.  It  has  been  urged  with  great  warmth  against  us, 
that  "  precedents"  show  this  power  is  rightfully  vested  in  Parliament. 

Submission  to  unjust  sentences  proves  not  a  right  to  pass  them. 
Carelessness  or  regard  for  the  peace  and  welfare  of  the  community, 
may  cause  the  submission.  Submission  may  sometimes  be  a  less  evil 
than  opposition,  and  therefore  a  duty.  In  such  cases,  it  is  a  submis 
sion  to  the  divine  authority,  which  forbids  us  to  injure  our  country; 
not  to  the  assumed  authority,  on  which  the  unjust  sentences  were 
founded.  But  when  submission  becomes  inconsistent  with  and  de 
structive  of  the  public  good,  the  same  veneration  for  and  duty  to  the 
divine  authority,  commands  us  to  oppose.  The  all  wise  Creator  of 
man  impressed  certain  laws  on  his  nature.  A  desire  of  happiness, 
and  of  society,  are  two  of  those  laws.  They  were  not  intended  to  de 
stroy,  but  to  support  each  other.  Man  has  therefore  a  right  to  pro 
mote  the  best  union  of  both,  in  order  to  enjoy  both  in  the  highest 
degree.  Thus,  while  this  right  is  properly  exercised,  desires,  that 
seem  selfish,  by  a  happy  combination,  produce  the  welfare  of  others. 
"  This  is  removing  submission  from  a  foundation  unable  to  support 
it,  and  injurious  to  the  honor  of  God,  and  fixing  it  upon  much  firmer 
ground." 

No  sensible  or  good  man  ever  suspected  Mr.  Hooker  of  being  a 
weak  or  factious  person,  "yet  he  plainly  enough  teacheth,  that  a 
society  upon  experience  of  universal  evil,  have  a  right  to  try  by 
another  form  to  answer  more  effectually  the  ends  of  government" — 
And  Mr.  Hoadley  asks — "  Would  the  ends  of  government  be  de 
stroyed  should  the  miserable  condition  of  the  people  of  France,  which 
hath  proceeded  from  the  king's  being  absolute,  awaken  the  thoughts 
of  the  wisest  heads  amongst  them;  and  move  them  all  to  exert  them 
selves,  so  as  that  those  ends  should  be  better  answered  for  the  time  to 
come  ?" 

What  mind  can  relish  the  hardy  proposition,  that  because  precedents 
have  been  introduced  by  the  inattention  or  timidity  of  some,  and  the 
cunning  or  violence  of  others,  therefore  the  latter  have  a  right  to 


JOHN  DICKINSON.  55 

make  the  former  miserable — that  is,  that  precedents  that  ought  never 
to  have  been  set,  yet  being  set,  repeal  the  internal  laws  of  natural 
justice,  humanity  and  equity. 

The  argument  from  precedents  begins  unluckily  for  its  advocates. 
The  first  produced  against  us  by  the  gentleman  before  mentioned,  was 
an  act  passed  by  the  Commonwealth  Parliament  in  1650  to  "punish" 
Virginia,  Barbados,  Antigua,  and  Bermudas,  for  their  fidelity  to 
Charles  the  Second.  So  ancient  is  the  right  of  Parliament  to  "  pun 
ish"  colonists  for  doing  their  duty.  But  the  Parliament  had  before 
overturned  church  and  throne,  so  that  there  is  an  older  "  precedent" 
set  against  these. 

That  Parliament  sat  amidst  the  ruins  that  surrounded  it,  fiercer  than 
Marius  among  those  of  Carthage.  Brutal  power  became  an  irresisti 
ble  argument  of  boundless  right.  What  the  style  of  an  Aristotle 
could  not  prove,  the  point  of  a  Cromwell's  sword  sufficiently  demon 
strated.  Innocence  and  justice  sighed  and  submitted — What  more 
could  they  do  ?  The  restoration  took  place,  and  a  legal  Parliament 
would  not  doubt  but  it  had  as  extensive  a  right  as  an  illegal  one. 
The  revolution  succeeded,  and  with  it  methods  for  blending  together 
the  powers  of  king  and  people  in  a  manner  before  unknown.  A  new 
political  alembic  was  fixed  on  the  great  principle  of  resistance,  and  in 
it,  severe  experiments  were  to  be  made  on  every  other  principle  of  the 
constitution.  How  the  boldness  of  ministers  and  contempt  of  the 
people  have  increased  since  that  period,  not  a  man  in  the  least  ac 
quainted  with  English  history  can  be  ignorant.  The  colonies  were  in 
a  state  of  infancy — still  in  a  state  of  childhood.  Not  a  single  statute 
concerning  them  is  recollected  to  have  been  passed  before  the  revolu 
tion,  but  such  as  related  to  the  regulation  of  trade.  "  Precedents" 
were  afterwards  made,  that,  when  they  grew  up,  the  authority  of  a 
master  might  succeed  that  of  a  parent. 

Precedents,  it  is  apprehended,  are  no  otherwise  regarded  in  the 
English  laws  than  as  they  establish  certainty  for  the  benefit  of  the 
people — according  to  the  maxim — "miserable  is  the  servitude  when 
the  laws  are  uncertain."  Precedents  militating  against  the  welfare  or 
happiness  of  a  people,  are  inconsistent  with  the  grand  original  prin 
ciple  on  which  they  ought  to  be  founded.  Their  supposed  sanction 
increases  in  proportion  to  the  repetitions  of  injustice.  They  must  be 
void.  In  subjects  of  dispute  between  man  and  man,  precedents  may 
be  of  use,  though  not  founded  on  the  best  reason.  They  cause  a  cer 
tainty,  and  all  may  govern  themselves  accordingly.  If  they  take  from 
an  individual  one  day,  they  may  give  to  him  the  next.  But  precedents 
to  overthrow  principles,  to  justify  the  perpetual  oppression  of  all,  and 
to  impair  the  power  of  the  Constitution,  though  a  cloud  of  them  ap 
pear,  have  no  more  force  than  the  volumes  of  dust  that  surround  a 
triumphal  car.  They  may  obscure  it:  They  cannot  stop  it.  What 
would  the  liberties  of  the  people  of  England  have  been  at  this  time  if 
A.  P.— 3. 


5 6  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

precedents  could  have  made  laws  inconsistent  with  the  constitution  ? 
Precedents  tending  to  make  men  unhappy,  can  with  propriety  of 
character  be  quoted  only  by  those  beings,  to  whom  the  misery  of  men 
is  a  delight. 

"  If  the  usage  had  been  immemorial  and  uniform,  and  ten  thousand 
instances  could  have  been  produced,  it  would  not  have  been  sufficient; 
because  the  practice  must  likewise  be  agreeable  to  the  principles  of 
tthe  law,  in  order  to  be  good:  whereas  this  is  a  practice  inconsistent 
with,  and  in  direct  opposition  to  the  first  and  clearest  principles  of  the 
law — to  those  feelings  of  humanity,  out  of  which  mankind  will  not  be 
reasoned,  when  power  advances  with  gigantic  strides  threatening  dis 
solution  to  a  state — to  those  inherent  though  latent  powers  of  society, 
which  no  climate,  no  time,  no  constitution,  no  contract,  can  ever 
destroy  or  diminish." 

A  parliamentary  power  of  internal  legislation  over  these  colonies, 
appears,  therefore,  to  us  equally  contradictory  to  humanity  and  the 
Constitution,  and  illegal. 

As  to  the  second  head,  a  power  of  regulating  our  trade,  our  opinion 
is  that  it  is  legally  vested  in  Parliament,  not  as  a  supreme  legislature 
over  these  colonies,  but  as  the  supreme  legislature  and  full  representa 
tive  of  the  parent  state,  and  the  only  judge  between  her  and  her 
children  in  commercial  interests  which  the  nature  of  the  case  in  the 
progress  of  their  growth  admitted.  It  has  been  urged,  with  great 
vehemence  against  us,  and  seems  to  be  thought  their  fort  by  our 
adversaries,  "that  a  power  of  regulation  is  a  power  of  legislation,  and 
a  power  of  legislation,  if  constitutional,  must  be  universal  and  supreme 
in  the  utmost  sense  of  the  words.  It  is  therefore  concluded  that  the 
colonists,  by  acknowledging  the  power  of  regulation,  have  acknowl 
edged  every  other  power."  On  this  objection  we  observe  that,  accord 
ing  to  a  maxim  of  law,  "  it  is  deceitful  and  dangerous  to  deal  in 
general  propositions."  The  freedom  and  happiness  of  states  depend 
not  on  artful  arguments,  but  on  a  few  plain  principles.  The  plausible 
appearance  of  the  objection  consists  in  a  confused  comprehension  of 
several  points,  entirely  distinct  in  their  nature,  and  leading  to  conse- 
quences  directly  opposite  to  each  other.  There  was  a  time  when 
England  had  no  colonies.  Trade  was  the  object  she  attended  to  in 
encouraging  them.  A  love  of  freedom  was  manifestly  the  chief 
motive  of  the  adventurers.  The  connection  of  colonies  with  their 
parent  state  may  be  called  a  new  object  of  the  English  laws.  That 
her  right  extinguishes  all  their  rights — rights  essential  to  freedom,  and 
which  they  would  have  enjoyed,  by  remaining  in  their  parent  state 
— is  offensive  to  reason,  humanity,  and  the  Constitution  of  that  State. 
Colonies  could  not  have  been  planted  on  these  terms.  What  English 
man,  but  an  idiot,  would  have  become  a  colonist  on  these  conditions  ? 
to  mention  no  more  particulars,  "  That  every  shilling  he  gained  might 
rightfully  be  taken  from  him — trial  by  jury  abolished — the  building 


JOHN  DICKINSON.  57 

houses  or  making  cloths,  with  the  materials  found  or  raised  in  the 
colonies  prohibited — and  armed  men  set  -over  him  to  govern  him  in 
every  action  ?" 

Had  these  provinces  never  been  settled — had"  all  the  inhabitants  of 
them  now  living  been  born  in  England,  and  resident  there,  they  would 
now  enjoy  the  rights  of  Englishmen,  that  is,  they  would  be  free  in 
that  kingdom.  We  claim,  in  the  colonies,  these  and  no  other  rights. 
There  no  other  kingdom  or  state  interferes.  But  their  trade,  however 
important  it  may  be,  as  the  affairs  of  mankind  are  circumstanced, 
turns  on  other  principles.  All  the  power  of  Parliament  cannot  regu 
late  that  at  their  pleasure.  It  must  be  regulated,  not  by  Parliament 
alone,  but  by  treaties  and  alliances  formed  by  the  King  without  the 
consent  of  the  nation,  with  other  states  and  kingdoms.  The  freedom 
of  a  people  consists  in  being  governed  by  laws,  in  which  no  alteration 
can  be  made,  without  their  consent.  Yet  the  wholesome  force  of 
these  laws  is  confined  to  the  limits  of  their  own  country.  That  is,  a 
supreme  legislature  to  a  people,  which  acts  internally  over  that 
people,  and  inevitably  implies  personal  assent,  representation,  or 
slavery.  When  an  universal  empire  is  established,  and  not  till  then, 
can  regulations  of  trade  properly  be  called  acts  of  supreme  legislature. 
It  seems,  from  many  authorities,  as  if  almost  the  whole  power  of 
regulating  the  trade  of  England  was  originally  vested  in  the  Crown. 
One  restriction  appears  to  have  been  that  no  duty  could  be 
imposed  without  the  consent  of  Parliament.  Trade  was  little  re 
garded  by  our  war-like  ancestors.  As  commerce  became  of  more 
importance,  duties  and  severities  were  judged  necessary  additions 
to  its  first  simple  state.  Parliament  more  and  more  interfered. 
The  Constitution  was  always  free,  but  not  always  exactly  in  the 
same  manner.  "  By  the  Feodal  law,  all  navigable  rivers  ami 
havens  were  computed  among  the  Regalia,  and  were  subject  to 
the  sovereign  of  the  state.  And  in  England  it  hath  always  been 
held  that  the  King  is  lord  of  the  whole  shore,  and  particularly  is 
guardian  of  the  ports  and  havens,  which  are  the  inlets  and  gates  cf 
the  realm;  and,  therefore,  so  early  as  the  reign  of  king  John,  we  find 
ships  seized  by  the  king's  officers,  for  putting  in  at  a  place  that  was 
not  a  legal  port.  These  legal  ports  were  undoubtedly  at  first  assigned 
by  the  Crown;  since  to  each  of  them  a  court  of  portmote  is  incident, 
the  jurisdiction  of  which  must  flow  from  the  royal  authority.  The 
erection  of  beacons,  lighthouses,  and  sea  marks,  is  also  a  branch  of 
the  royal  prerogative.  The  king  may  injoin  any  man  from  going 
abroad,  or  command  any  man  to  return.  The  powers  of  establish 
ing  public  marts,  regulating  of  weights  and  measures,  and  the  giving 
authority  to,  or  making  current,  money,  the  medium  of  commerce, 
belong  to  the  Crown.  By  making  peace  or  war,  leagues  and  treaties, 
the  king  may  open  or  stop  trade  as  he  pleases.  The  admiralty  courts 
are  grounded  on  the  necessity  of  supporting  a  jurisdiction  so  extern- 


5$  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

sive,  though  opposite  to  the  usual  doctrines  of  the  common  law.  The 
laws  of  Oleron'were  made  by  Richard  I.,  and  are  still  used  in  those 
courts."  In  the  "Mare  clausum  "  are  several  regulations  made  by 
kings.  Time  forbids  a  more  exact  inquiry  into  this  point;  but  such,  it 
is  apprehended,  will,  on  inquiry,  be  found  to  have  been  the  power  of 
the  Crown,  that  our  argument  may  gain,  but  cannot  lose.  We  will 
proceed  on  a  concession,  that  the  power  of  regulating  trade  is  vested 
in  Parliament. 

Commerce  rests  on  concessions  and  restrictions  mutually  stipulated 
between  the  different  powers  of  the  world;  and,  if  these  colonies  were 
sovereign  states,  they  would  in  all  probability  be  restricted  to  their 
present  portion.  The  people  of  England  were  freemen  before  they 
were  merchants.  Whether  they  will  continue  free  they  themselves 
must  determine.  How  they  shall  trade  must  be  determined  by  Ger 
mans,  Frenchmen,  Spaniards,  Italians,  Turks,  Moors,  etc.  The  right 
of  acquiring  property  depends  on  the  rights  of  others;  the  right  of 
acquired  property,  solely  on  the  owner.  The  possessor  is  no  owner 
without  it.  "Almost  every  leaf  and  page  of  all  the  volumes  of  the 
Common  Law  prove  this  right  of  property."  Why  should  this  right 
be  sacred  in  Great  Britain,  "the  chief  corner-stone"  in  the  solid 
foundation  of  her  Constitution,  and  an  empty  name  in  her  colonies  ? 
The  lamb  that  presumed  to  drink  in  the  same  stream  with  a  stronger 
animal,  though  lower  down  the  current,  could  not  refute  the  charge  of 
incommoding  the  latter  by  disturbing  the  water.  Such  power  have 
reasons  that  appear  despicable  and  detestable  at  first  when  they  are 
properly  enforced. 

From  this  very  principle  arose  her  power;  and  can  that  power  now 
be  justly  exerted  in  suppression  of  that  principle  ?  It  cannot.  There 
fore  a  power  of  regulating  our  trade  involves  not  in  it  the  idea  of 
supreme  legislature  over  us.  The  first  is  a  power  of  a  preserving, 
"protecting"  nature.  The  last,  as  applied  to  America,  is  such  .? 
power  as  Mr.  Justice  Blackstone  describes  in  these  wrords,  "whose 
enormous  weight  spreads  horror  and  destruction  on  all  inferior  move^ 
ments."  The  first  is  a  power  subject  to  a  constitutional  check. 
Great  Britain  cannot  injure  us  by  taking  away  our  commerce  without 
hurting  herself  immediately.  The  last  is  a  power  without  check  01 
limit.  She  might  ruin  us  by  it.  The  injury  thereby  to  herself  might 
be  so  remote  as  to  be  despised  by  her. 

The  power  of  regulation  was  the  only  band  that  could  have  held  us 
together;  formed  on  one  of  those  "original  contracts"  which  only 
can  be  a  foundation  of  just  authority.  Without  such  a  bard  our 
general  commerce  with  foreign  nations  might  have  been  injurious  and 
destructive  to  her.  Reason  and  duty  reject  such  a  licence.  This  our 
duty  resembles  that  of  children  to  a  parent.  The  parent  has  a  power 
orei  them;  but  thej  have  rights  which  the  parent  cannot  take  away. 
Heaven  grant  that  our  mother  country  may  regard  us  as  her  children 


•JOHN  DICKINSON.  59 

that  if,  by  the  dispensation  of  Providence,  the  time  shall  come  when 
her  power  decreases,  the  memory  of  former  kindnesses  may  supply 
its  decays,  and  her  colonies,  like  dutiful  children,  may  serve  and 
guard  their  aged  parent,  for  ever  revering  the  arms  .hat  held  them  in 
their  infancy,  and  the  breasts  that  supported  their  lives  while  they 
were  little  ones. 

It  seems  as  if  the  power  of  regulation  might  not  inaptly  be  com 
pared  to  the  prerogative  of  making  peace,  war,  treaties,  or  alliances, 
whereby  "the  whole  nation  are  bound  against  their  consent;"  and 
yet  the  prerogative  by  no  means  implies  a  supreme  legislature.  The 
language  held  in  "the  Commentaries"  on  this  point  is  very  remark 
able.  "With  regard  to  foreign  concerns  the  King  is  the  delegate  or 
representative  of  the  people;  and  in  him,  as  in  a  centre,  all  the  rays 
of  his  people  are  united,  and  the  sovereign  power  quoad  hoc  is  vested 
in  his  person."  Will  any  Englishman  say  these  expressions  are  de 
scriptive  of  the  king's  authoriiy,  within  the  realm.  "  Is  the  sovereign 
power  within  that  vested  in  his  person  ?''  He  is  styled  "  sovereign"  in 
deed  ;  "  his  realm  is  declared  by  many  acts  of  Parliament  an  empire  and 
his  crown  imperial."  But  do  these  splendid  appellations,  the  highest 
known  in  Europe,  signify,  that  "  sovereign  power  is  vested  in  his  person 
within  the  realm?"  We  have  a  full  answer  in  the  Commentaries. 
"The  meaning  of  the  legislature,  when  it  uses  these  terms  of  empire 
and  imperial,  and  applies  them  to  the  realm  and  Crown  of  England,  is 
only  to  assert,  that  our  king  is  equally  sovereign  and  independent  within 
these  his  dominions  ;  and  owes  no  kind  of  subjection  to  any  potentate 
upon  earth."  Thus  we  maintain,  that  with  regard  to  foreign  af 
fairs,  the  parent  original  state,  "  is  the  delegate  or  representative,''  of 
the  entire  dominions,  "  the  sovereign  power  quoad  hoc  is  vested"  in  her. 
Her  acts  under  this  power  "irrevocably  bind  the  whole  nation."  But 
yet  this  power  by  no  means  implies  a  supreme  legislature. 

The  exercise  of  this  power  by  statutes  was  absolutely  necessary  ;  because 
it  was,  and  could  only  be  lodged,  as  the  laws  of  the  parent  state  stand,  in 
the  supreme  legislature  of  that  state,  consisting  of  king,  lords,  and  com 
mons  ;  and  statutes  are  the  modes  by  which  their  united  sentiments  and 
resolutions  are  expressed.  It  is  universally  acknowledged  in  Great 
Britain,  that  it  infers  no  power  of  taxation  in  king  and  lords,  that  their 
limited  authority  is  used  in  clothing  gifts  and  grants  of  the  commons 
with  the  forms  of  law — nor  does  it  infer  supreme  legislature  over  Us, 
that  the  limited  authority  of  king,  lords,  and  commons  is  used  in  cloth 
ing  regulations  of  trade  with  the  form  of  law.  The  commons  joining  in 
the  act,  is  not  material.  The  difference  is  only  in  the  mode  of  assent. 
Theirs  is  express,  ours  is  implied,  as  the  assent  of  the  "whole 
nation,"  is,  in  the  preceding  instances. 

This  power  of  regulation  appears  to  us  to  have  been  pure  in  its 
principle,  simple  in  its  operation,  and  salutary  in  its  effects.  But  for 
some  time  past  we  have  observed,  with  pain,  that  it  hath  been  turned 


60  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

to  other  purposes,  than  it  was  originally  designed  for,  and  retaining 
its  title,  hath  become  an  engine  of  intolerable  oppressions  and  griev 
ous  taxations.  The -argument  of  an  eminent  judge,  states  the  point  in 
a  similar  case  strongly  for  us,  in  these  words — "  Though  it  be  granted, 
that  the  king  hath  the  custody  of  the  havens  and  ports  of  this  island, 
being  the  very  gates  of  this  kingdom,  and  is  trusted  with  the  keys  of 
these  gates;  yet  the  inference  and  argument  thereupon  made,  I  utterly 
deny.  For  in  it  there  is  mutatio  hypothesis,  and  a  transition  from  a 
thing  of  one  nature  to  another;  as  the  premises  are  of  a  power  only 
fiduciary,  and  in  point  of  trust  and  government,  and  the  conclusion 
infers  a  right  of  interest  and  gain.  Admit  the  king  has  custodiam 
portmim,  yet  he  hath  but  the  custody,  which  is  a  trust  and  not 
dominitiin  utile.  He  hath  power  to  open  and  shut,  upon  considera 
tion  of  public  good  to  the  people  and  state,  but  not  to  make  gain  and 
benefit  by  it.  the  one  is  protection,  the  other  is  expilation."  By  com 
mon  law  the  king  may  restrain  a  subject  from  going  abroad,  or  enjoin 
iiim  by  his  chancellor  from  proceeding  at  law:  But  to  conclude,  that 
he  may  therefore  take  money,  not  to  restrain  or  not  to  enjoin,  is  to 
sell  government,  trust,  and  common  justice. 


THOUGHTS  ON  STANDING  ARMIES. 

JOSIAH   QUINCY,    JR. 
Boston,  May  14,  1774. 

The  faculty  of  intelligence  may  be  considered  as  the  first  gift  of  God; 
its  due  exercise  is  the  happiness  and  honor  of  man  ;  its  abuse  his 
calamity  and  disgrace.  The  most  trifling  duty  is  not  properly  dis 
charged  witthout  the  exertion  of  this  noble  faculty;  yet  how  often  does  it 
lie  dormant,  while  the  highest  concernments  are  in  issue?  Believe  me 
(my  countrymen)  the  labor  of  examining  for  ourselves,  or  great  impo 
sition,  must  be  submitted  to;  there  is  no  other  alternative  ;  and  unless 
we  weigh  and  consider  what  we  examine,  little  benefit  will  result  from 
research.  We  are  at  this  extraordinary  crisis  called  to  view  the  most 
melancholy  events  of  our  day  ;  the  scene  is  unpleasant  to  the  eye,  bin 
its  contemplation  will  be  useful,  if  our  thoughts  terminate  with  judg 
ment,  resolution  and  spirit. 

If  at  this  period  of  public  affairs,  we  do  not  think,  deliberate,  and 
determine  like  men — men  of  minds  to  conceive,  hearts  to  feel,  and 
virtue  to  act — what  are  we  to  do  ? — to  gaze  upon  our  bondage  ?  while 
our  enemies  throw  about  fire-brands,  arrows  and  death,  and  play  their 
tricks  of  desperation  with  the  gambols  of  sport  and  wantonness. 

The  proper  object  of  society  and  civil  institution  is  the  advancement 
of  "  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number."  The  people  (as  a 


JO  SI  A II  Q  UINC  y,  JR.  6 1 

body,  being  never  interested  to  injure  themselves  and  uniformly 
desirous  of  the  general  welfare)  have  ever  made  this  collective  felicity 
the  object  of  their  wishes  and  pursuit.  But  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
what  the  many  through  successive  ages  have  desired  and  sought,  the 
few  have  found  means  to  baffle  and  defeat.  The  necessity  of  the  ac 
quisition  hath  been  conspicuous  to  the  rudest  mind;  but  man,  incon 
siderate,  that,  "  in  every  society,  there  is  an  effort  constantly  tending  to 
confer  on  one  part  the  height  of  power,  and  to  reduce  the  other  to  the 
extreme  of  weakness  and  misery,"  hath  abandoned  the  most  important 
concerns  of  civil  society  to  the  caprice  and  control  of  those  whose 
elevation  caused  them  to  forget  their  pristine  equality,  and  whose  in 
terest  urged  them  to  degrade  the  best  and  most  useful  below  the  worst 
and  most  unprofitable  of  the  species.  Against  this  exertion,  and  the 
principle  which  originates  it,  no  vigilance  can  be  too  sharp,  no 
determination  too  severe. 

But  alas  ! — as  if  born  to  delude  and  be  deluded — to  believe  what 
ever  is  taught,  and  bear  all  that  is  imposed — successive  impositions, 
wrongs  and  insults  awaken  neither  the  sense  of  injury  or  spirit  of 
revenge.  Fascinations  and  enchantments,  chains  and  fetters  bind  in 
adamant  the  undeustanding  and  passions  of  the  human  race.  Ages 
follow  ages,  pointing  the  way  to  study  wisdom — but  the  charm  con 
tinues. 

Sanctified  by  authority  and  armed  with  power,  error  and  usurpation 
bid  defiance  to  truth  and  right,  while  the  bulk  of  mankind  sit  gazing  at 
the  monster  of  their  own  creation — a  monster,  to  which  their  follies 
and  vices  gave  origin,  and  their  depravity  and  cowardice  continue  in 
existence. 

"  The  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number"  being  the  object 
and  bond  of  society,  the  establishment  of  truth  and  justice  ought  to  be 
the  basis  of  civil  policy  and  jurisprudence.  But  this  capital  estab 
lishment  can  never  be  attained  in  a  state  where  there  exists  a  power 
superior  to  the  civil  magistrate  and  sufficient  to  control  the  authority 
of  the  laws.  Whenever,  therefore,  the  profession  of  arms  becomes  a 
distinct  order  in  the  state,  and  a  standing  army  part  of  the  constitu 
tion,  we  are  not  scrupulous  to  affirm,  that  the  end  of  the  social  com 
pact  is  defeated,  and  the  nation  called  to  act  upon  the  grand  question 
consequent  upon  such  an  event. 

The  people  who  compose  the  society  (for  whose  security  the  labor 
of  its  institution  was  performed,  and  of  the  toils  its  preservation  daily 
sustained)  the  people,  I  say  are  the  only  competent  judges  of  their 
own  welfare,  and,  therefore,  are  the  only  suitable  authority  to  determine 
touching  the  great  end  of  their  subjection  and  their  sacrifices.  This 
position  leads  us  to  two  others,  not  impertinent  on  this  occasion,  be 
cause  of  much  importance  to  Americans: — 

That  the  legislative  body  of  the  commonwealth  ought  to  deliberate, 
determine  and  make  their  decrees  in  places  where  the  legislators  may 


62  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

easily  know  from  their  own  observation  the  wants  and  exigencies,  the 
sentiments  and  will,  the  good  and  happiness  of  the  people  ;  and  the 
people  as  easily  know  the  deliberations,  motives,  designs  and  conduct 
of  their  legislators  before  their  statutes  and  ordinances  actually  go 
forth  and  take  effect. 

That  every  member  of  the  Legislature  ought  himself  to  be  so  far 
subject  in  his  person  and  property  to  the  laws  of  the  state,  as  to  im 
mediately  and  effectually  feel  every  mischief  and  inconvenience  result 
ing  from  all  and  every  act  of  legislation. 

The  science  of  man  and  society,  being  the  most  extended  in  its 
nature,  and  the  most  important  in  its  consequences  of  any  in  the  circle 
of  erudition,  ought  to  be  an  object  of  universal  attention  and  study. 
Was  it  made  so,  the  rights  of  mankind  would  not  remain  buried  for 
ages,  under  systems  of  civil  and  priestly  hierarchy,  nor  social  felicity 
overwhelmed  by  lawless  domination. 

Under  appearances  the  most  venerable,  and  institutions  the  most 
revered  ;  under  the  sanctity  of  religion,  the  dignity  of  government, 
and  the  smiles  of  beneficence,  do  the  subtle  and  ambitious  make 
their  first  incroachments  upon  their  species.  Watch  and  oppose 
ought  therefore  to  be  the  motto  of  mankind.  A  nation  in  its  best 
estate,  guarded  by  good  laws,  fraught  with  public  virtue,  and  steeled 
with  martial  courage  may  resemble  Achilles  ;  but  Achilles  was 
wounded  in  the  heel.  The  least  point  left  unguarded,  the  foe  enters. 
Latent  evils  ?.re  the  most  dangerous — for  we  often  receive  the  mortal 
wound,  while  we  are  flattered  with  security. 

The  experience  of  all  ages  showe  that  mankind  are  inattentive  to  the 
calamities  of  others,  careless  of  admonition,  and  with  difficulty  roused 
to  repel  the  most  injurious  invasion?.  "I  perceive  (said  the  great 
patriot  Cicero  to  his  countrymen)  an  inclination  for  tyranny  in  all 
Caesar  projects  or  executes."  Notwithstanding  this  friendly  caution, 
not  "  till  it  was  too  late  did  the  people  find  out  that  no  beginnings, 
however  small,  are  to  be  neglected."  For  that  Caesar,  who  at  first 
attacked  the  commonwealth  with  mines  very  soon  opened  his  bat 
teries.  Encroachments  upon  the  rights  and  property  of  the  citizen  arc 
like  the  rolling  of  mighty  waters  over  the  breach  of  ancient  mounds  ; 
slow  and  unalarming  at  the  beginning,  rapid  and  terrible  in  the  current, 
a  deluge  and  devastation  at  the  end.  Behold  the  oak,  which  stretchcth 
itself  to  the  mountains,  and  overshadows  the  valleys,  was  once  an 
acorn  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth.  Slavery  (my  friends)  which  was  yes 
terday  engrafted  among  you,  already  overspreads  the  land,  extending 
its  arms  to  the  ocean,  and  its  limbs  to  the  rivers.  Unclean  and  vora 
cious  animals  under  its  covert,  find  protection  and  food,  but  the  shade 
blnsteth  the  green  herb,  and  the  root  thereof  poisoneththe  dry  ground, 
while  the  winds  which  wave  its  branches  scatter  pestilence  and  death. 

Regular  government  is  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  private 
property  and  personal  security.  Without  these,  men  will  descend 


JO  SI  A II  QUINCY,  JR.  63 

into  barbarism,  or  at  best  become  adepts  in  humiliation  and  servility; 
but  they  will  never  make  a  progress  in  literature  or  the  useful  arts. 
Surely  a  proficiency  in  arts  and  sciences  is  of  some  value  to  mankind, 
and  deserves  some  consideration.  What  regular  government  can 
America  enjoy  with  a  legislative  a  thousand  leagues  distant,  unac 
quainted  with  her  exigencies,  militant  in  interest,  and  unfeeling  of  her 
calamities?  What  protection  of  property — when  ministers  under  this 
authority  shall  over-run  the  land  with  mercenary  legions?  What 
personal  safety  when  a  British  administration — (such  as  it  now  is, 
and  corrupt  as  it  may  be) — pour  armies  into  the  capital  and  senate- 
house — point  their  arti  iery  against  the  tribunal  of  justice,  and  plant 
weapons  of  death  at  the  posts  of  our  doors  ? 

Thus  exposed  to  the  power,  and  insulted  by  the  arms  of  Britain — 
standing  armies  become  an  object  of  serious  attention.  And  as  the 
history  of  mankind  affords  no  instance  of  successful  and  confirmed 
tyranny,  without  the  aid  of  military  forces,  we  shall  not  wonder  to 
find  them  the  desiderata  of  princes,  and  the  grand  object  of  modern 
policy.  What,  though  they  subdue  every  generous  passion  and  extin 
guish  every  spark  of  virtue — all  this  must  be  done,  before  empires 
will  submit  to  be  exhausted  by  tribute  and  plundered  with  impunity. 

Amidst  all  the  devices  of  man  to  the  prejudice  of  his  species,  the 
institution  of  which  we  treat,  hath  proved  the  most  extensively  fatal 
to  religion,  morals,  and  social  happiness.  Founded  in  the  most 
malevolent  dispositions  of  the  human  breast,  disguised  by  the  policy 
of  state,  supported  by  the  lusts  of  ambition,  the  sword  hath  spread 
havoc  and  misery  throughout  the  world.  By  the  aid  of  mercenary 
troops,  the  sinews  of  war,  the  property  of  the  subject,  the  life  of  the 
commonwealth  have  been  committed  to  the  hands  of  hirelings,  whose 
interest  and  very  existence,  depend  on  an  abuse  of  their  power.  In 
the  lower  class  of  life,  standing  armies  have  introduced  brutal  de 
bauchery  and  real  cowardice  ;  in  the  higher  or  iers  of  state,  venal 
haughtiness  and  extravagant  dissipation.  In  short,  whatever  are  the 
concomitants  of  despotism  ;  whatever  the  appendages  of  oppression, 
this  armed  monster  hath  spawned  or  nurtured,  protected  or  estab 
lished, — monuments  and  scourges  of  the  folly  and  turpitude  of  man. 

Review  the  armament  of  modern  princes, — what  sentiments  actuate 
the  military  body?  what  characters  compose  it?  Is  there  a  private 
sentinel  of  all  the  innumerable  troops  that  make  so  brilliant  a  figure, 
who  would  not  for  want  of  property  have  been  driven  from  a  Roman 
cohort,  when  soldiers  were  the  defenders  of  liberty  ? 

Booty  and  blind  submission  is  the  science  of  the  camp.  When  lust, 
rapacity,  or  resentment  incite,  whole  battalions  proceed  to  outrage. 
Do  their  leaders  command — obedience  must  follow.  "  Private  soldier 
(said  Tiberius  Gracchus  from  the  Roman  rostrum)  fight  and  die  to 
advance  the  wealth  and  luxury  of  the  great."  "Soldiers  (said  an 
eminent  Puritan  in  his  sermon  preached  in  this  country  more  than 


64  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

one  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago),  are  commonly  men  who  fight 
themselves  fearlessly  into  the  mouth  of  hell  for  revenge,  a  booty,  or 
a  little  revenue  ; — a  day  of  battle  is  a  day  of  harvest  for  the  devil." 
Soldiers,  like  men,  are  much  the  same  in  every  age  and  country. 

"  Heroes  are  much  the  same,  the  point's  agreed, 
From  Macedonia's  madman  to  the  Sweed." 

What  will  they  not  fight  for — whom  will  they  not  fight  against  ? 
Are  these  men,  who  take  up  arms  with  a  view  to  defend  their  country 
and  its  laws  ?  Do  the  ideas  or  the  feelings  of  the  citizen  actuate  a 
British  private  on  entering  the  camp?  Excitements,  generous  and 
noble,  like  these,  are  far  from  being  the  stimuli  of  a  modern  phalanx. 
The  general  of  an  army,  habituated  to  uncontrolled  command,  feels 
himself  absolute  ;  he  forgets  his  superiors,  or  rather  despises  that  civil 
authority,  which  is  destitute  of  an  energy  to  compel  his  obedience. 
His  soldiers  (who  look  up  to  him  as  their  sovereign,  and  to  their 
officers  as  magistrates)  lose  the  sentiments  of  the  citizen  and  contemn 
the  laws.  Thus  a  will  and  a  power  to  tyrannize  become  united  ;  and 
the  effects  are  as  inevitable  and  fatal  in  the  political,  as  the  moral 
world. 

The  soldiers  of  Great  Britain  are  by  the  mutiny  act  deprived  of 
those  legal  rights  which  belong  to  the  meanest  of  their  fellow  subjects, 
and  even  to  the  vilest  malefactor.  Thus  divested  of  those  rights  and 
privileges  which  render  Britons  the  envy  of  all  other  nations,  and 
liable  to  such  hardships  and  punishments  as  the  limits  and  mercy  of 
our  known  laws  utterly  disallow  ;  it  may  well  be  thought  they  are 
persons  best  prepared  and  most  easily  tempted  to  strip  others  of  their 
rights,  having  already  lost  their  own.  Excluded,  therefore,  from  the 
enjoyments  which  others  possess,  like  eunuchs  of  an  Eastern  seraglio, 
they  envy  and  hate  the  rest  of  the  community,  and  indulge  a  malig 
nant  pleasure  in  destroying  those  privileges  to  which  they  can  never 
be  admitted.  How  eminently  does  modern  observation  verify  that 
sentiment  of  Baron  Montesquieu — a  slave  living  among  free  men  will 
soon  become  a  beast. 

A  very  small  knowledge  of  the  human  breast,  and  a  little  consider 
ation  of  the  ends  for  which  we  form  into  societies  and  common-  [ 
wealths,  discover  the  impropriety  and  danger  of  admitting  such  an 
order  of  men  to  obtain  an  establishment  in  the  state  ;  the  annals  and 
experience  of  every  age,  show  that  it  is  not  only  absurdity  and  folly-* 
but  distraction  and  madness.  But  we,  in  this  region  of  the  earth, 
have  not  only  to  dread  and  struggle  with  the  common  calamities 
resulting  from  such  military  bodies,  but  the  combined  dangers  arising 
from  an  army  of  foreigners,  stationed  in  the  very  bowels  of  the  land. 
Infatuated  Britons  have  been  told — and  as  often  deceived — that  an 
army  of  natives  would  never  oppress  their  own  countrymen.  But 
C-^sar  and  Cromwell,  and  an  hundred  others,  have  enslaved  their 


JO  SI  A II   QL'hVCY,  JR.  65 

country  with  such  kind  of  forces  And  who  does  not  know  that 
subalterns  are  implicitly  obedient  to  their  officers;  who,  when  they 
become  obnoxious,  are  easily  changed,  as  armies  to  serve  the  pur 
poses  of  ambition  and  power  are  soon  new  modelled.  Hut  as  to 
America,  the  armies  which  infest  her  shores,  are  m  every  view 
foreigners,  disconnected  with  her  in  interest,  kindred,  and  other  social 
alliances,  who  have  nothing  to  lose,  but  everything  to  gain,  by 
butchering  and  oppressing  her  inhabitants.  But  yet  worse  :  their 
inroads  are  to  be  palliated,  their  outrages  are  to  receive  a  sanction 
and  defence  from  a  Parliament  whose  claims  and  decrees  are  as 
unrighteous  as  the  Administration  is  corrupt ;  as  boundless  as  their 
ambition,  and  as  terrible  as  their  power.  The  usurpation  and  tyranny 
of  the  Decemviri  of  Rome  are  represented  as  singularly  odious  and 
oppressive  ;  but  even  they  never  assumed  what  Britain  in  the  face  of 
all  mankind  hath  avowed  and  exercised  over  the  colonies — the  power 
of  passing  laws  merely  on  her  own  authority.  "  Nothing  that  we 
propose  (said  they  to  the  people)  can  pass  into  a  law  without  your 
consent.  Be  yourselves,  ye  Romans,  the  authors  of  those  laws  on 
which  your  happiness  depends." 

"The  dominion  of  all  great  empires  degrades  and  debases  the 
human  species."  The  dominion  of  Britain  is  that  of  a  mighty  empire. 
Her  laws  waste  our  substance,  her  placemen  corrupt  our  morals,  and 
her  armies  are  to  break  our  spirits.  Yes,  are  they  not  to  do  more? 
"To  spoil,  to  slaughter,  and  to  commit  every  kind  of  violence;  and 
then  to  call  the  manoeuvre  by  a  lying  name — government ;  and,  when 
they  have  spread  a  general  devastation,  call  it  peace."  In  the  bar 
barous  massacres  of  France,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  very  hang 
men  refused  obedience  to  the  cruel  mandates  of  the  French  monarch, 
saying,  they  were  legal  officers,  and  only  executed  those  the  laws 
condemned.  Yet  history  bears  testimony  that  the  soldiers  performed 
the  office  which  the  hangman  refused.  YVho  then  can  be  at  a  loss  for 
the  views  of  those  who  were  so  fond  of  introducing  and  tenacious  of 
obtaining  similar  peace  officers  in  this  obnoxious  capital  ?  But  let  all 
such — yes,  let  Great  Britain  consider  the  nature  of  mankind;  let  her 
examine  carefully  the  history  of  past  events,  and  attend  to  the  voice 
of  experience. 

In  the  same  age  we  have  just  mentioned,  the  Low  Countries,  then 
subject  to  the  crown  of  Spain,  being  persecuted  by  the  court  and  church 
of  that  kingdom,  rose  up  to  resist  their  oppressors.  Upon  which,  in 
the  year  1567,  the  Duke  of  Alva  was  sent,  and  entered  the  country 
with  a  well-appointed  army,  ten  thousand  strong;  in  order  to  quell 
and  punish  the  insurgents.  Terrified  with  these  martial  operations,  the 
towns  suffered  the  open  breach  of  their  charters,  and  the  people  sub 
mitted  to  the  most  humiliating  infraction  of  their  liberties;  while  Alva, 
being  invested  with  the  government,  erected  the  court  of  twelve, 
called  the  council  of  blood,  and  caused  great  numbers  to  be  condemned 


66  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

and  executed  on  account  of  the  insurrections.  Universal  complaints 
ensued  on  this  disuse  of  the  ordinary  courts  of  law  and  the  introduction 
of  the  army;  but  complaints  were  in  vain,  and  all  murmurs  despised. 
The  people  became  enraged;  but  without  a  leader,  they  were  over 
awed.  "  The  army  (says  Sir  William  Temple)  was  fierce  and  brave, 
and  desirous  of  nothing  so  much  as  a  rebellion  of  the  country."  All 
was  seizure  and  process,  confiscation  and  imprisonment,  blood  and 
horror,  insolence  and  dejection,  punishments  executed  and  meditated 
revenge.  But  though  the  multitude  threatened  vengeance,  the  threats 
of  a  broken  and  unarmed  people  excited  contempt  and  not  fear.  Aha 
redoubled  his  impositions  and  ravages,  his  edicts  were  published  for 
raising  monies  without  the  consent  of  the  state,  and  his  soldiers  were 
called  to  levy  the  exactions  by  force. — But  the  event  shewed  that  the 
timidity  and  tameness  of  mankind,  like  every  thing  human,  will  have 
a  period.  The  patience  of  the  miserable  sufferers  came  to  an  end  ; 
and  those  commotions  began  which  deluged  a  great  part  of  Europe 
with  blood,  and  finally  freed  the  united  provinces  from  the  yoke  of 
Spain  and  the  inquisition. — What  conflicts  too  sharp — what  horrors  too 
dreadful  to  endure  for  such  a  happy  deliverance — such  a  glorious  issue  ? 
Thus  "  the  first  period  of  the  low  country  troubles  (says  the  same  in 
genious  writer)  proved  to  King  Philip  (of  Spain)  a  dear  experience, 
how  little  the  boldest  armies  and  best  conduct,  are  able  to  withstand 
the  torrent  of  a  stubborn  and  enraged  people,  which  ever  bears  all 
down  before  it,  till  it  be  divided  into  different  channels  by  arts,  or  by 
chance;  or  till  the  springs  which  are  the  humors  that  fed  it,  come  to 
be  spent,  or  dry  up  of  themselves." 

During  several  centuries,  history  informs  us,  that  no  monarch  in 
Europe  was  either  so  bold,  or  so  powerful  as  to  venture  on  any  steps 
towards  the  introduction  of  regular  troops.  At  last,  Charles  the  7th 
of  France,  seizing  a  favorable  opportunity  in  1445,  executed  that  which 
his  predecessors  durst  not  attempt,  and  established  the  first  standing 
army  known  in  Europe.  Lewis  the  nth,  son  and  successor  of  Charles, 
finding  himself  at  the  head  of  his  father's  forces,  was  naturally  excited 
to  extend  the  limits  of  his  ancestors,  in  the  levies  of  money  and  men. 
Charles  had  not  been  able  to  raise  upon  his  subjects  two  millions,  but 
the  army  he  left  his  successor  enabled  him  to  levy  near  five.  The 
father  established  an  army  of  about  seventeen  hundred,  which  "he 
kept  in  good  order  and  placed  for  the  defence  of  the  realm;"  but  this 
army,  though  thus  disciplined  and  stationed,  enabled  the  son  to  main 
tain  "in  continual  pay  a  terrible  band  of  men  of  arms,  which  gave  the 
realm  (says  the  historian  Philip  de  Commines)  a  cruel  wound  of  which 
it  bled  many  years."  How  regular,  correspondent  and  uniform  are 
the  rise  and  progression  of  military  calamities  in  all  ages!  How  re 
plete  with  instruction — how  full  of  admonition  are  the  memorials  of 
distant  times — especially  when  contracted  into  the  view,  and  held  up 
in  comparison  with  the  present. 


JOSIAI1   QUINCY,  JR,  67 

Charles  and  Lewis  having  set  the  example,  all  Hie  neighboring 
crowned  heads  soon  followed,  and  mercenary  troops  were  introduced 
into  all  the  considerable  kingdoms  of  the  continent.  They  gradually 
became  the  only  military  force  that  was  employed  or  trusted.  It  has 
long  been  (says  the  learned  Dr.  Robertson)  the  chief  object  of  policy 
to  increase  and  support  them,  and  the  great  aim  of  princes  or  minis 
ters  to  discredit  and  to  annihilate  all  other  means  of  national  activity 
or  defence.  Who  will  wonder  at  this,  who  reflect,  that  absolute  mon 
archies  are  established,  and  can  only  be  supported  by  mercenary  forces? 
Who  can  be  surprised  that  princes  and  their  subalterns  discourage  a 
martial  spirit  among  the  people,  and  endeavor  to  render  useless  and 
contemptible  the  militia,  when  this  institution  is  the  natural  strength, 
and  only  stable  safeguard  of  a  free  country?  "  Without  it,  'tis  folly  to 
think  any  free  government  will  ever  have  security  and  stability."  A 
standing  army  in  quarters  will  grow  effeminate  and  dissolute;  while  a 
militia,  uniformly  exercised  with  hard  labor,  are  naturally  firm  and 
robust.  Thus  an  army  in  peace  is  worse  than  a  militia;  and  in  war,  a 
militia  will  soon  become  disciplined  and  martial.  But  "when  the 
sword  is  in  the  hands  of  a  single  person — as  in  our  constitution — he  will 
always  (says  the  ingenious  Hume)  neglect  to  discipline  the  militia,  in 
order  to  have  a  pretext  for  keeping  up  a  standing  army.  'Tis  evident 
(says  the  same  great  character)  that  this  is  a  mortal  distemper  in  the 
British  government;  of  which  it  must  at  last  inevitably  perish."  What 
a  deformed  monster  is  a  standing  army  in  a  free  nation?  Free,  did  I 
say?  what  people  are  truly  free,  whose  monarch  has  a  numerous  body 
of  armed  mercenaries  at  his  heels?  who  is  already  absolute  in  his  power 
— or  by  the  breath  of  his  nostrils  may  in  an  instant  make  himself  so  ? 

No  free  government  was  ever  founded  or  ever  preserved  its  liberty 
without  uniting  the  characters  of  the  citizen  and  soldier  in  those  des 
tined  for  defence  of  the  state.  The  sword  should  never  be  in  the 
hands  of  any,  but  those  who  have  an  interest  in  the  safety  of  the  com 
munity,  who  fight  for  their  religion  and  their  offspring; — and  repel 
invaders  that  they  may  return  to  their  private  affairs,  and  the  enjoy 
ment  of  freedom  and  good  order.  Such  are  a  well  regulated  militia 
composed  of  the  freeholders,  citizen  and  husbandman,  who  take  up 
arms  to  preserve  their  property  as  individuals,  and  their  rights  as  free 
men.  Such  is  the  policy  of  a  truly  wise  nation,  and  such  was  the 
wisdom  of  the  ancient  Britons.  The  primitive  constitution  of  a  state 
in  a  few  centuries  falls  to  decay:  errors  and  corruption  creep  gradually 
into  the  administration  of  government — till  posterity  forget  or  disre 
gard  the  ins'.itutions  of  their  remote  ancestors.  In  ancient  times,  the 
militia  of  England  was  raised,  officered  and  conducted  by  common 
consent.  Its  militia  was  the  ornament  of  the  realm  in  peace,  and  for 
ages  continued  the  only  and  sure  defence  in  war.  Was  the  King  him 
self  general  of  an  army — it  was  by  the  consent  of  his  people.  Thus 
when  the  Romans  visited  the  island  of  Britain, Cassibelan  was  the  Prince 


68  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

and  chief  commander  in  war;  but  it  was  by  the  election  of  the  great 
Common  Council,  Sum  in  a  belli  (says  Caesar)  communi  concilio,  Cassi- 
bilano  tradilnr.  Nor  will  this  seem  strange,  when  we  consider  that  it 
was  the  first  state  maxim  with  the  Druids  ne  loqui  dc  -rcpublica,  nisi  per 
concilium — not  even  to  speak  upon  a  matter  of  state  but  in  council. 
Nor  is  it  to  be  wondered  that  such  politicians  informed  Csesar,  that 
they  had  been  so  long  accustomed  to  liberty,  that  they  knew  not  the 
meaning  of  tribute  and  slavery;  and  sent  him  word  that  they  had  as 
good  blood  as  he,  and  from  the  same  fountain.  Surely  a  message  that 
was  received  by  a  Roman,  may  be  sent  to  a  British  Caesar.  These 
were  those  venerable  Druids,  who  had  inspired  the  Gauls,  of  whom 
Caesar  reports  this  memorable  boast:  We  can  call  or  appeal  to  such  a 
Great  Common  Council,  as  all  the  world  cannot  resist.  Tacitus,  speak 
ing  of  our  Saxon  ancestors,  relates,  Regcs  ex  nobilitate.  Duccs  ex  vir- 
tute  in  iisdeni  conciliis  eliguntur.  The  great  council,  or  the  Parliament 
of  the  state  had,  not  only  the  appointment  of  the  pri-ncipes  militia,  but 
the  conduct  of  all  the  military  forces,  from  the  first  erection  of  the 
standard,  to  its  lodgment  in  the  Citadel;  for  as  the  same  noble  writer 
informs,  it  was  their  general  custom — not  to  entrust  any  man  with  the 
bearing  of  arms,  antcquam  ci  vitas  stissectui-uni  probaverit.  Such  was 
the  security  of  the  people  from  the  calamities  of  a  standing  army:— 
happy  indeed  if  their  successors  could  boast  a  similar  provision — 
Britain  would  not  new  be  groaning  under  oppression — nor  her  distant 
children  struggling  for  their  freedom. 

A  spirited  nation  thus  embodied  in  a  well  disciplined  militia,  will 
soon  become  warlike;  and  such  a  people  more  fitted  for  action  than 
debate,  always  hasten  to  a  conclusion  on  the  subject  of  grievances  and 
public  wrongs,  and  bring  their  deliberations  to  the  shortest  issue. 
With  them  "it  is  the  work  of  but  one  day,  to  examine  and  resolve  the 
nice  question,  concerning  the  behavior  of  subjects  towards  a  ruler  who 
abuses  his  power." 

Artful  dissemblings  and  plausible  pretences  are  always  adopted  in 
order  to  introduce  regular  troops.  Dionysius  became  the  tyrant  of 
Syracuse,  the  most  opulent  of  all  the  Grecian  cities,  by  feigning  a 
solicitude  for  the  people  and  a  fear  of  his  own  person.  He  humbly 
prayed  only  a  guard  for  his  protection:  they  easily  granted,  what  he 
readily  took — the  power  of  plundering  by  military  force,  and  entailing 
his  sovereignty  by  a  devise  of  his  sword.  Agathocles,  a  successor  to 
the  Dionysian  family  and  to  the  command  of  the  army,  continued  the 
military  tyranny;  and  butchered  the  enslaved  people  by  centuries. 

Cardinal  Ximenes,  who  made  the  first  innovation  of  this  kind  in 
Spain,  disguised  the  measure  under  the  pious  and  popular  appearance 
of  resisting  the  progress  of  the  infidels.  The  nobles  saw  his  views  and 
excited  opposition  in  the  chief  towns  of  the  kingdom.  But  by  dexter 
ously  using  terror  and  entreaty,  force  and  forbearance,  the  refractory- 
cities  were  brought  to  compliance.  The  nobles  thus  driven  to  despe- 


JO  SI  A II  QUIXCY,  JR.  69 

rate  resolutions  by  the  cardinal's  military  movements,  at  a  personal 
interview  were  warm  and  intemperate.  When  the  arch-prelate  insen 
sibly  led  them  towards  a  balcony,  from  which  they  had  a  view  of  a 
large  body  of  troops  under  arms,  and  a  formidable  train  of  artillery; 
"  Behold,"  says  he,  pointing-  to  these,  and  raising  his  voice,  "  the  pow 
ers  which  I  have  received  from  his  catholic  majesty.  With  these  I 
govern  Castile,  and  with  these  I  will  govern  it."  Nobles  and  people 
discovered  it  was  now  too  late  for  resistance:  to  regret  past  folly  and 
dread  future  calamities  was  the  remaining  fate  of  the  wretched  Cas- 
tilians.  After  the  Romans  quitted  the  island  of  Britain,  the  first 
appearance  of  a  standing  army  was  under  Richard  the  second.  The 
suppression  of  his  enemies  in  Ireland  calling  him  out  of  England,  his 
subjects  seized  the  opportunity  and  dethroned  him. 

Henry  the  seventh,  a  character  odious  for  rapacity  and  fraud,  was 
the  first  king  of  England  wiio  obtained  a  permanent  military  band  in 
that  kingdom.  It  was  only  a  band  of  fifty  archers:  with  the  harmless 
appellation  of  yeomen  of  the  guards.  This  apparently  trival  institu 
tion  was  a  precedent  for  the  greatest  political  evil  that  ever  infested 
the  inhabitants  of  Britain.  The  ostensible  pretext  was,  the  dignity  of 
government — "  the  grandeur  of  majesty" — the  alteration  of  the  con 
stitution,  and  an  increase  of  power  was  the  aim  of  the  prince.  An 
early  "  oppugnation  of  the  king's  authority,"  though,  no  doubt,  his 
favorite  subalterns  would  have  styled  it  "  ill-timed,"  had  easily  effected 
that  disbanding  of  the  new  raised  forces,  which  being  a  little  while  de 
layed,  no  subsequent  struggles  have  accomplished.  The  wisdom  of 
resistance  at  the  beginning,  has  been  repeatedly  inculcated  by  the  wise 
and  liberal-minded  of  all  nations,  and  the  experience  of  every  age  hath 
confirmed  their  instruction.  But  no  precept  or  example  can  make  the 
bulk  of  mankind  wise  for  themselves.  Though  cautioned  (as  we  have 
seen)  against  the  projects  of  Caesar,  the  smiles  of  his  benignity  deceived 
the  Roman  commonwealth,  till  the  increase  of  his  power  bid  defiance 
to  opposition.  Celebrated  for  his  generosity  and  manificence,  his 
complacency  and  compassion,  the  complaisant  courtier  made  his  way 
into  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen.  They  would  not  believe,  though 
admonished  by  the  best  of  men  and  first  of  patriots,  that  the  smiling 
Caesar  would  filch  away  their  liberties,  that  a  native — born  and  bred  a 
Roman — would  enslave  his  country — the  land  of  his  fathers — the  land 
of  his  birth — the  land  of  hfs  posterity.  But  the  ambitious  Caesar  aim 
ing  at  authority,  and  Caesar  armed  and  intoxicated  with  power,  appear  in 
very  different  characters.  He  who  appeared  with  the  mildness  of  a 
fine  gentleman,  in  his  primaeval  state,  in  an  advanced  station  conducted 
with  the  sternness  of  a  tyrant.  Opposed  by  a  tribune  of  the  people  in 
taking  money  out  of  the  public  treasury  against  the  laws,  Caesar  with 
an  army  at  his  heels,  proclaimed  "  arms  and  laws  do  not  flourish  to 
gether."  "If  you  are  not  pleased  (added  the  usurper)  with  what  I  am 
about,  you  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  withdraw.  Indeed  war  will  not 


7°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

bear  much  liberty  of  speech.  When  I  say  this,  I  am  departing  from 
rny  own  right.  For  you  and  all  I  have  found  exciting  a  spirit  of  faction 
against  me,  are  at  my  disposal."  Saying  this,  he  approached  the  doors 
of  the  treasury,  as  the  keys  were-  not  produced,  he  sent  his  workmen 
to  break  them  open.  This  is  the  complaisant  Caesar — renowned  for 
his  amiable  qualities:  by  his  easy  address  he  deceived,  and  by  his  arts 
enslaved  his  countrymen — and  prepared  the  way  for  a  succeeding  Nero 
to  spoil  and  slaughter  them. — Singular  and  very  remarkable  have  been 
the  interpositions  of  Providence  in  favor  of  New  England — the  per 
mission  of  an  early  carnage  in  our  streets,  peradventure,  was  to  awaken 
us  from  the  danger — of  being  politely  beguiled  into  security,  and  fraud- 
fully  drawn  into  bondage — a  state  that  sooner  or  later  ends  in  rapine 
and  blood. — Shall  we  be  too  enthusiastic,  if  we  attribute  to  the  divine 
influence  that  unexpected  good  which  h;.th  so  often  in  our  day  been 
brought  out  of  premeditated  evil  ?  Few,  <  omparatively,  of  the  many 
mischiefs  aimed  against  us,  but  what  have  terminated  in  some  advan 
tage,  or  are  now  verging  to  some  happy  issue. — If  the  dexterity  of 
veteran  troops  have  not  excited  envy,  if  their  outrage  hath  not  pro 
voked  revenge,  their  military  disclipine  hath  set  a  well-timed  example, 
and  their  savage  fury  been  a  well-improved  incentive.  The  lusts  of 
an  enemy  may  touch  a  sensibility  of  mind,  and  his  very  pride  pique 
the  virtue  of  the  heart. 

Charles  the  second  told  his  Parliament,  their  "jealousy,  that  the 
forces  he  had  raised  were  designed  to  control  laws  and  property,  was 
weak  and  frivolous."  The  cajolement  took  for  a  season,  but  his  sub 
jects  having  been  abused  by  repeated  violations  of  his  most  solemn 
vows,  at  last  roused  from  their  lethargy;  and  the  king  began  to  dread 
the  severity  of  their  vengeance.  He  therefore  kept  up  a  standing  army, 
not  only  against  law,  but  the  repeated  resolutions  of  every  Parliament 
of  his  reign.  He  found  that  corruption  without  force  could  not  con 
firm  him  a  tyrant,  and  therefore  cherished  and  augmented  his  troops 
to  the  destruction  of  his  people  and  the  terror  of  his  senators.  "There 
go  our  masters"  was  a  common  saying  among  the  members  of  Parlia 
ment.  "  No  law  can  restrain  these  people;  houses  are  taken  from  us, 
our  lives  are  in  danger"  (said  one  member  in  Parliament.)  "  "Without 
betraying  her  trust,  (said  P,ussel)  we  must  vote  these  standing  forces  a 
grievance.  There  are  designs,  about  the  King,  to  ruin  religion  and 
property.  Public  business  is  the  least  of  theft:  concern.  A  few  upstart 
people,  making  hay  while  the  sun  shines,  set  up  an  army  to  establish 
their  interest:  I  would  have  care  taken  for  the  future,  that  no  army  be 
raised  for  a  cabal  interest.  A  gentleman  said  the  last  session,  that 
this  war  was  made  rather  for  the  army,  than  the  army  for  the  war. 
This  government,  with  a  standing  army,  can  never  be  safe:  We  can- 
not  be  secure  in  this  house;  and  some  of  us  mav  have  our  heads 
taken  off." 

Patriots  harangued  in  vain— -*he   Commons  voted  the  keeping  up 


JO  SI  A II   QUINCY,  JR.  Jl 

the  army  illegal  and  a  grievance — but  while  they  thus  did,  they  openly 
betrayed  a  dread  of  that  army.  "  I  would  not  give  an  alarm  to  those 
who  have  arms  in  their  hands,"  said  one  member;  "  I  cannot  but 
observe  that  the  House  of  Commons  is  now  in  fear  of  the  army,"  said 
another  Plain  as  it  was  for  what  end  the  army  was  kept  up,  the 
people  slumbered. 

The  British  Court,  never  destitute  of  plausibilities  to  deceive,  or 
inventions  to  enthral  the  nation,  appropriated  moneys,  raised  by 
Parliament  for  the  purpose  of  disbanding  the  army,  to  their  continu 
ance,  and  uniformly  pursued  similar  measures,  till  in  the  year  1684, 
"  the  King,  in  order  to  make  his  people  sensible  to  their  new 
slavery,  affected  to  muster  his  troops,  which  amounted  to  4,000 
well-armed  and  disciplined."  If  Rapin  denominated  so  small  an 
armament,  the  slavery  of  the  subject  under  Charles  II.,  what  would 
he  call  the  state  of  Britons  under  George  III.?  With  4,000  troops 
the  kingdom  it  seems  was  reduced  to  servitude;  but  the  spirit  of  the 
nation  soon  after  rose.  In  1685  complaint  was  made  in  Parliament 
that  the  country  '  was  weary  of  the  oppression  and  plunder  of  the 
soldiers;"  "the  army  (it  was  said)  debauched  the  manners  of  all  the 
people,  their  wives,  daughters,  and  servants."  The  grievance  became 
intolerable — and,  what  was  happy,  it  was  not  too  mighty  for  oppo 
sition  James  II  had  only  14,000  or  15,000  troops — and  no  riot 
act.  The  barbarities  of  a  Kirk,  and  the  campaign  of  a  Jefferies,  could 
not  pass  with  impunity.  The  revolution  succeeded,  and  James  abdi 
cated  his  throne.  Such  was  the  fate  of  one  who  vainly  affected  to 
play  the  despot  with  about  fifteen  regiments,  had  he  been  encircled 
with  an  hundred,  no  doubt,  he  had  reigned  an  applauded  tyrant — 
flattered  in  his  day,  with  that  lying  appellation — the  wisest  and  the 
best  of  kings." 

The  army  of  the  present  king  of  Great  Britain  is  larger  than  that 
with  which  Alexander  subdued  the  East,  or  Caesar  conquered  Gaul. 
"  If  the  army  we  now  keep  up  (said  Sir  John  Philips  thirty  years  ago 
in  the  House  of  Commons)  should  once  be  as  much  attached  to  the 
Crown  as  Julius  Caesar's  army  was  to  him,  I  should  be  glad  to  know 
where  we  could  find  a  force  superior  to  that  army!"  Is  there  no  such 
attachment  now  existing?  Surely  the  liberties  of  England,  if  not  held 
at  will,  are  holden  by  a  very  precarious  tenure. 

The  supreme  power  is  ever  possessed  by  those  who  have  arms  in 
their  hands  and  are  disciplined  to  the  use  of  them.  When  the  Archieves, 
conscious  of  a  good  title,  disputed  with  Lysander  about  boundaries, 
the  Lacedemonian  showed  his  sword,  and  vaunlingly  cried  out  "he 
that  is  master  of  this  can  best  plead  about  boundaries."  The  Mar- 
motines  of  Messina  declined  appearance  at  the  tribunal  of  Pompey, 
to  acknowledge  his  jurisdiction,  alleging  in  excuse,  ancient  privi 
leges,  granted  them  by  the  Romans — "Will  you  never  have  done 
(exclaimed  Pompey)  with  citing  laws  and  privileges  to  men  who  wear 


72  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

swords  ?  '  What  boundaries  will  they  set  to  their  passions,  who  have 
no  limits  to  their  power?  Unlimited  oppression  and  wantonness  are 
the  never-failing  attendants  of  unbounded  authority.  Such  power  a 
veteran  army  always  acquire,  and,  being  able  to  riot  in  mischief  with 
impunity,  they  always  do  it  with  licentiousness. 

Regular  soldiers,  embodied  for  the  purpose  of  originating  oppres 
sion  or  extending  dominion,  ever  compass  the  control  of  the  magis 
trate.  The  same  force  wh.'ch  preserves  a  despotism  immutable,  may 
change  the  despot  every  day.  Power  is  soon  felt  by  those  who 
possess  it,  and  they  who  can  command  will  never  servilely  obey. 
The  leaders  of  the  army,  having  become  masters  of  the  person  of 
their  sovereign,  degrade  or  exalt  him  at  will.  Obvious  as  these  truths 
may  seem,  and  confirmed  as  they  are  by  all  history,  yet  a  weak  or 
wicked  prince  is  easily  persuaded,  by  the  creatures  who  surround  him, 
to  act  the  tyrant.  A  character  so  odious  to  subjects,  must  necessarily 
be  timid  and  jealous.  Afraid  of  the  wise  and  good,  he  must  support 
his  dignity  by  the  assistance  of  the  worthless  and  wicked.  Standing 
armies  are  therefore  raised  by  the  infatuated  prince.  No  sooner 
established  than  the  defenceless  multitude  are  their  first  prey  Mere 
power  is  wanton  and  cruel — the  army  grow  licentious  and  the  people 
grow  desperate.  Dreadful  alternative  to  the  infatuated  monarch  !  In 
constant  jeopardy  of  losing  the  regalia  of  empire,  till  the  caprice  of  an 
armed  banditti  degrade  him  from  sovereignty,  or  the  enraged  people 
wreak  an  indiscriminate  and  righteous  vengeance.  Alas!  when  will 
kings  learn  wisdom,  and  mighty  men  have  understanding? 

A  further  review  of  the  progress  of  armies  in  our  parent  state  will 
be  a  useful  though  not  a  pleasant  employ.  No  particular  reason  or 
occasion  was  so  much  as  suggested  in  the  bill  which  passed  the 
Parliament,  in  1717,  for  keeping  on  foot  a  standing  army  of  30,000 
men  in  time  of  peace  (a  number  since  amazingly  increased).  An  act 
justly  recorded  in  the  Lord's  Journal,  to  be  a  precedent  for  keeping 
the  same  army  at  all  times,  and  which  the  protest  of  that  day  fore 
told,  "  must  inevitably  subvert  the  ancient  constitution  of  the  realm, 
and  subject  the  subjects  to  arbitrary  power."  To  borrow  the  pointed 
turn  of  a  modern  orator — what  was  once  prophecy,  is  now  history. 

The  powers  given  by  the  mutiny  act,  which  is  now  constantly 
passed  every  year,  was  repeatedly  in  former  times  "opposed  and 
condemned  by  Parliament  as  repugnant  to  Magna-charta,  and  incon 
sistent  with  the  fundamental  rights  and  liberties  of  a  free  people." 
In  this  statute  no  provision  is  made  for  securing  the  obedience  of  the 
military  to  the  civil  power,  on  which  the  preservation  of  our  constitu 
tion  depends.  A  great  number  of  armed  men  governed  by  martial 
law,  having  it  in  their  power,  are  naturally  inclined  not  only  to  dis 
obey,  but  to  insult  the  civil  magistrate.  The  experience  of  what  hath 
happened  in  England,  as  well  as  the  memorials  of  all  ages  and  nations, 
have  made  it  sufficiently  apparent  that  wherever  an  effectual  provision 


JOSIAII  QUIXCY,  JR.  73 

is  not  made  to  secure  the  obedience  of  soldiers  to  the  laws  of  their 
country,  the  military  hath  constantly  subverted  and  swallowed  up  the 
civil  power.  What  provision  of  this  kind  can  the  several  continental 
legislatures  make  against  British  troops  stationed  in  the  colonies? 
Nay,  if  the  virtue  of  one  branch  of  government  attempted  the  salutary 
measure,  would  the  first  branch  ever  give  its  consent  ?  A  governor 
must — he  will  obey  his  master;  the  alternative  is  obvious.  The  armies 
quartered  among  us  must  be  removed,  or  they  will  in  the  end  overturn 
and  trample  on  all  that  we  ought  to  hold  valuable  and  sacre;]. 

We  have  authority  to  affirm  that  the  regular  forces  of  Great  Britain 
consist  of  a  greater  number  than  are  necessary  for  the  guard  of  the 
King's  person  and  the  defence  of  government,  and  therefore  dangerous 
to  the  constitution  of  the  kingdom.  What,  then,  do  these  armaments, 
when  established  here,  threaten  to  our  laws  and  liberties  ?  Well  might 
the  illustrious  members  of  the  House  of  Peers,  in  1722,  hold  forth  the 
danger  of  "a  total  alteration  of  the  frame  of  our  constitution  from  a 
legal  and  limited  monarchy  to  a  despotic;"  and  declare  they  were 
"  induced  to  be  of  this  judgment,  as  well  from  the  nature  of  armies, 
and  the  inconsistency  of  great  military  power  and  martial  law  with 
civil  authority,  as  from  the  known  and  universal  experience  of  other 
countries  in  Europe,  which,  by  the  influence  and  power  of  standing 
armies,  in  time  of  peace,  have,  from  limited  monarchies,  like  ours,  been 
changed  into  absolute."  The  taxes  necessary  to  maintain  a  standing 
army  drain  and  impoverish  the  land.  Thus  exhausted  by  tribute,  the 
people  gradually  become  spiritless  and  fall  an  easy  sacrifice  to  the 
reigning  power. 

Spirits,  like  Britons,  naturally  fierce  and  independent,  are  not  easily 
awed  or  suddenly  vanquished  by  the  sword.  Hence  an  augmentation 
of  forces  hath  been  pushed  when  there  was  no  design  of  bringing 
them  into  action  against  Englishmen  in  an  open  field.  New  forces 
have  oftener  than  once  been  raised  in  England  more  for  civil  than 
military  service;  and,  as  elections  for  a  new  parliament  have  ap 
proached,  this  door  has  been  opened  to  introduce  a  large  body  of 
commissioned  pensioners.  What  hath  been  the  consequence  ?  A 
constant  majority  of  placemen  meeting  under  the  name  of  a  parlia 
ment,  to  establish  grievances  instead  of  redressing  them — to  approve 
implicitly  the  measures  of  a  court  without  information — to  support 
and  screen  ministers  they  ought  to  control  or  punish — to  grant  money 
without  right,  and  expend  it  without  discretion?  Have  these  been 
the  baneful  consequences?  Are  these  solemn  truths?  Alas!  we 
tremble  to  think;  but,  we  may  venture  to  say,  that  when  this  is  true 
of  that  legislative  authority,  which  not  only  claims  (but  exercises) 
"still  power  and  authority  to  make  laws  and  statutes  to  bind  the 
colonies  and  people  of  America  in  all  cases  whatsoever; "  the  forms 
of  our  Constitution,  creating  a  fatal  delusion,  will  become  our  greatest 
grievance. 


74  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

The  formalities  of  a  free,  and  the  ends  of  a  despotic  state,  have  often 
subsisted  together.  Thus  deceived  was  the  republic  of  Rome ; 
officers  and  magistrates  retained  their  old  names  ;  the  forms  of  the 
ancient  government  being  kept  up,  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  com 
monwealth  were  violated  with  impunity,  and  its  once  free  Constitution 
utterly  annihilated.  He  who  gave  Augustus  Caesar  the  advice,  "that 
to  the  officers  of  state  the  same  names,  pomp,  and  ornaments,  should 
be  continued,  with  all  the  appearances  of  authority,  without  the 
power,"  discovered  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  mankind.  The 
advice  was  followed,  and  Caes:r  soon  became  senate,  magistracy,  and 
laws.  Is  not  Britain  to  America  what  Csesar  was  to  Rome  ? 

It  is  curious  to  observe  the  various  acts  of  imposition,  which  are 
alternately  practiced  by  the  great  and  subtle  of  this  world,  on  their 
subordinate  and  simple-minded  brethren.  Are  a  people  free  ?  new 
oppressions  are  introduced  or  shrouded  under  old  names;  are  they  in 
present  bondage,  and  begin  to  grow  turbulent  ?  new  appellations  must 
be  adopted  to  disguise  old  burdens.  A  notable  instance  of  this  latter 
kind  we  find  in  the  Parliament  of  Great  Biitain  (in  36  Edw.  3,  ch.  2), 
upwards  of  four  hundred  years  ago.  The  royal  prerogative,  called 
purveyance,  having  been  in  vain  regulated  by  many  preceding 
statutes,  still  continued  so  intolerably  grievous  that  fresh  murmurs 
and  complaints  called  for  a  more  adequate  or  better  adapted  provision. 
The  British  legislature,  for  this  valuable  purpose,  therefore  passed 
this  very  remarkable  law,  which,  by  way  of  remedy,  enacted  as  fol 
lows,  viz.:  "  That  the  hateful  name  of  purveyor  shall  be  changed  into 
that  of  Acator."  Thus  the  nation  were  to  be  made  to  believe  that  the 
oppression  ceased  because  the  name  was  altered.  For  the  honor  of 
government,  as  well  as  mankind,  it  is  devoutly  to  be  wished  that  our 
laws  and  history  contained  no  other  record  of  such  disgraceful  prac 
tices.  If  any  late  acts  of  the  British  Parliament  carry  strong  marks 
of  a  similar  policy,  it  is,  surely,  not  altogether  unworthy  the  consider 
ation  of  the  members  of  that  august  body  how  far  such  disingenuous 
practices  are  consistent  with  the  honor  of  their  private  characters,  or 
the  dignity  of  their  public  station. 

The  magic  of  sounds  and  appellations  hath  not  ceased,  and  they 
work  as  much  deception  and  abuse  as  ever.  What  valuable  purpose 
does  a  wholly  subordinate  legislative  serve,  (except  to  amuse  with  the 
shadow,  while  the  substance  is  departed)  if  a  remote  state  may  legis 
late  for  and  bind  us  "in  all  cases  ?"  To  what  end  doth  an  American 
House  of  Representatives  go  through  the  form  of  granting  away  mon 
ies,  if  another  power,  full  as  familiar  with  our  pockets,  may  annihilate 
all  they  do;  and  afterwards,  with  a  modern  dexterity,  take  possession 
of  our  purses  without  ceremony,  and  dispose  of  the  contents  without 
modesty; — without  control,  and  without  account? 

It  is  curious  and  instructive  to  attend  the  courts  of  debate  in  the 
British  Commons  for  keeping  up  the  army.  At  first  even  the  highest 


JOSIAII  QUINCY,  JR.  75 

courtiers  would  argue — that  a  standing  army,  in  times  of  peace,  was 
never  attempted.  Soon  after  the  court-speakers  urged  for  continuance 
of  a  numerous  army  for  one  year  longer.  At  the  end  of  several  years 
after,  the  gentlemen  throw  aside  the  mask,  and  boldly  declare  such  a 
number  of  troops  must  always  be  kept  up.  In  short  the  army  must  be 
continued  till  it  becomes  part  of  the  constitution;  and  in  later  times, 
members  of  the  house  have  ventured  to  harangue  for  measures,  none 
would  have  dared  to  lisp  a  few  years  before.  The  wise  foresaw  this, 
and  the  honest  foretold  it.  "  If  we  continue  the  army  but  a  little 
while  longer,"  (said  a  celebrated  member  upwards  of  forty  years  ago.) 
"  it  may  be  in  the  power  of  some  gentlemen  to  talk  in  this  house,  in 
terms  that  will  be  no  way  agreeable  to  the  constitution  or  liberties 
of  our  country.  To  tell  us  that  the  same  number  of  forces  must  be 
always  kept  up,  is  a  proposition  full-fraught  with  innumerable  evils, 
and  more  particularly  with  this,  that  it  may  make  wicked  ministers 
more  audacious  than  otherwise  they  would  be  in  projecting  and  propo- 
gating  schemes  which  may  be  inconsistent  with  the  liberties,  destruc 
tive  of  the  trade,  and  burthensome  on  the  people  of  this  nation.  .  In 
countries  governed  by  standing  armies,  the  inclinations  of  the  people 
are  but  little  minded,  the  ministers  place  their  security  in  the  army, 
the  humors  of  the  army  they  only  consult,  with  them  they  divide  the 
spoils,  and  the  wretched  people  are  plundered  by  both." — Who,  that 
now  reconsiders  this  prophetic  language,  in  conjunction  with  the  events 
of  his  own  time,  but  will  cry  out — the  speaker  felt  the  impulse  of  inspi 
ration  ! 

' '  Whoever  (says  the  justly  celebrated  Dr.  Blackstone)  will  attentively 
consider  the  English  history,  may  observe,  that  the  flagrant  abuse  of 
any  power,  by  the  Crown  or  its  ministers,  has  always  been  productive 
of  a  struggle,  which  either  discovers  the  exercise  of  that  power  to  be 
contrary  to  law,  or  (if  legal)  restrains  it  for  the  future." 

The  ingenious  commentator  seems  here  to  have  particular  references 
to  periods  prior  to  the  revolution.  But  will  the  learned  judge  say, 
that  since  that  era,  there  have  been  no  flagrant  abuses  of  power  by  the 
Crown  or  its  ministers  ?  Have  not  repeated  struggles  arose  in  conse 
quence  of  such  abuses,  which  did  not  terminate  in  the  happy  issue  so 
characteristic  of  Englishmen  ?  Let  any  one  peruse  the  journals  of  Par 
liament,  especially  those  of  the  House  of  Peers;  let  him  carefully 
review  the  British  and  American  annals  of  the  present  century,  and 
answer  truly  to  these  questions. — The  natural  enquiry  will  be — whence 
then  is  it — that  such  abuses  have  become  so  numerous  and  flagrant, 
and  the  struggles  of  Britons  so  unsuccessful  ?  Will  not  the  question 
receive  an  ample  solution  in  the  words  of  the  same  great  lawyer  ? — 
"  There  is  a  newly  acquired  branch  of  (royal)  power;  and  that  not  the 
influence  only,  but  the  force  of  a  disciplined  army,  paid  indeed  ulti 
mately  by  the  people,  but  immediately  by  the  Crown;  raised  by  the 
Crown,  officered  by  the  Crown,  commanded  by  the  Crown." 


7 6  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

We  are  told  by  the  same  learned  author,  that  "whenever  the  uncon 
stitutional  oppressions,  even  of  the  sovereign  power,  advance  with 
gigantic  strides  and  threaten  desolation  to  a  state,  mankind  will  not 
be  reasoned  out  of  the  feelings  of  humanity,  nor  will  sacrifice  their 
liberty  by  a  scrupulous  adherence  to  those  political  maxims,  which 
wrere  established  to  preserve  it." — But  those  who  cannot  be  reasoned 
out  of  their  feelings,  are  easily  repressed  by  the  terror  of  arms,  from 
giving  tokens  of  their  sensibility;  and  states  ancient  and  modern — 
(yes  Britain  will  bear  me  witness  !) — who  would  disdain  to  sacrifice 
their  freedom  to  political  institutions  have  tremblingly  stood  aloof, 
while  it  was  dragged  to  the  altar  under  the  banners  of  a  royal  army. 

The  policy  and  refinement  of  men  clothed  with  authority,  often 
deceive  those  who  are  subject  to  its  control;  and  thus  a  people  are 
often  induced  to  waive  their  rights,  and  relinquish  the  barriers  of  their 
safety.  The  fraud,  however,  must  at  last  be  discovered,  and  the  nation 
will  resume  their  ancient  liberties,  if  there  be  no  force  sufficient  to 
screen  the  usurper  and  defend  his  nomination.  The  sword  alone  is 
sufficient  to  subdue  that  spirit  which  compels  rulers  to  their  duty,  and 
tyrants  to  their  senses.  Hence,  then,  though  a  numerous  standing 
army  may  not  be  absolutely  requisite  to  depress  a  kingdom  into  servi 
tude,  they  are  indispensably  necessary  to  confirm  an  usurpation. 

A  large  army  and  revenue  are  not  easily  and  at  once  forced  upon  a 
free  people.  By  slow  degrees  and  plausible  pretences,  as  we  have 
seen  in  England,  the  end  is  accomplished.  But  when  once  a  numerous 
body  of  revenue  and  military  men,  entirely  dependent  on  the  Crown, 
are  incorporated,  they  are  regardless  of  any  thing  but  its  will:  and 
where  that  will  centers,  and  what  such  power  can  effect,  is  a  matter  of 
no  doubtful  disputation. 

The  prereat  army  of  a  prince  is  always  composed  of  men  of  honor 
and  integrity,  as  the  reigning  monarch  is  ever  the  best  of  kings.  In 
such  an  army,  it  is  said,  you  may  trust  your  liberties  with  safety:  in 
such  a  king  you  may  put  your  confidence  without  reserve: — the  good 
man  has  not  a  wish  beyond  the  happiness  of  his  subjects!  Yet  let  it  be 
i^membered,  that  under  the  best  of  kings,  we  ought  to  seize  the  fleeting 
opportunity  and  provide  against  the  worst.  But  admitting,  that  from 
this  rare  character — a  wise  and  good  monarch — a  nation  have  nothing 
to  fear; — yet  they  have  everything  to  dread  from  those  who  would 
clothe  him  with  authority,  and  invest  him  with  powers  incompatible 
with  all  polit'cal  freedom  and  social  security.  France,  Spain,  Den 
mark,  and  Sweden  in  modern  times,  have  felt  the  baneful  effects  of 
this  fatal  policy.  Though  the  latter  state  are  said  to  have  this  excel 
lent  institution,  that  the  commissions  to  their  military  officers  all  run 
quain  diu  se  bene  gesserint:  a  regulation  which  ought  to  be  the  tenure 
of  all  offices  of  public  trust,  and  may  be  of  singular  utility  in  states 
which  have  incorporated  a  standing  army  as  part  of  the  constitution  of 
government. 


JO  SI  A//   QUINCY,  JR.  77 

An  invasion  and  conquest  by  mere  strangers  and  foreigners  are 
neither  so  formidable  or  disgraceful  as  the  establishment  of  a  standing 
army  under  color  of  the  municipal  law  of  the  land.  Thus  Roman 
armies  were  more  terrible  to  the  Roman  colonies,  than  an  "enemy's 
army/'  Valor  has  scope  for  action  against  an  open  enemy,  but  the 
most  precious  liberties  of  a  kingdom  are  massacred  in  cold  blood  by 
the  disciplined  Janizaries  of  the  state,  and  there  is  little  hope  of  a  gen 
eral  resistance.  The  natural  inherent  right  of  the  conquered  is  to 
throw  off  the  yoke,  as  soon  as  they  are  able;  but  subjects  enslaved  by 
the  military  forces  of  their  own  sovereign,  become  spiritless  and  des 
pondent;  and  scaffolds  and  axes,  the  gibbet  and  the  halter,  too  often 
terrify  them  from  those  noble  exertions  which  would  end  in  their  de 
liverance,  by  a  glorious  victory  or  an  illustrious  death. 

Yet  in  full  peace,  without  any  just  apprehensions  of  insurrections  at 
home,  or  invasions  from  abroad  ;  it  was  the  mischievous  policy  of  the 
English  ministry  in  1717,  to  procure  an  allowance  of  near  double  the 
forces  to  what  had  ever  before  been  established  by  the  sanction  of  Par 
liament  in  times  of  public  tranquillity.  Well  might  many  of  the  nobil 
ity  of  Britain  conceive,  that  as  so  many  forces  were  no  ways  neces 
sary  to  support,  they  had  reason  to  fear  danger  to  the  constitution, 
which  was  never  entirely  subverted  but  by  a  standing  army.  The 
English  military  bands  have  since  been  much  augmented;  and  whether 
this  disgraceful  subversion  has  already  taken  place,  or  is  still  verging 
to  its  accomplishment,  may  be  resolved,  after  a  further  inspection,  into 
memorials  of  the  present  age. 

More  than  half  a  century  since,  the  discerning  members  of  the 
House  of  Lords  discovered  the  tendency  of  these  extraordinary  arma 
ments  to  be  no  other,  than  to  overthrow  the  civil  power  of  the  king 
dom,  and  to  turn  it  into  a  military  government.  A  very  short  period 
after  this,  many  of  the  same  noble  house,  bore  open  testimony,  that 
they  were  "justly  jealous  from  the  experience  of  former  times,  that 
the  Crown  itself,  as  well  as  the  liberties  of  the  people  might  be  found 
at  the  disposal  of  a  standing  army  at  home." 

But  as  if  one  standing  army  was  not  enough  to  ruin  a  nation  of  Eng 
lishmen,  a  new  kind  of  forces  was  raised  against  the  commonwealth. 
The  officers  employed  in  the  customs,  excise,  in  other  branches  of  the 
revenue,  and  other  parts  of  public  service,  compose  in  effect  a  second 
standing  army  in  England,  and  in  some  respects  are  more  dangerous, 
than  that  body  of  men  so  called.  The  influence  which  this  order  have. 
in  the  election  of  members  to  serve  in  Parliament,  hath  been  too  often 
felt  in  Great  Britain  to  be  denied.  And  we  have  good  authority  to 
say,  "that  examples  are  not  hard  to  find,  where  the  military  forces 
have  withdrawn  to  create  an  appearance  of  a  free  election,  and  the 
standing  civil  forces  of  this  kind  have  been  sent  to  take  that  freedom 
away.  "  Is  a  House  of  Commons  thus  chosen  the  representatives  of 
the  people — or  of  the  administration — or  of  a  single  minister  ? 


7  8  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

As  Lewis  the  Xlth  of  France,  was  the  first  monarch  in  Europe,  who 
reduced  corruption  to  a  system,  so  the  era  of  its  establishment  in  Eng 
land  may  be  fixed  at  the  nr'yn  of  Charles  the  Second.  Britain,  then 
for  the  first  time,  saw  corruption,  like  a  destroying  angel,  walking  at 
noon-day.  Charles  pensioned  his  Parliament,' and  by  it  extinguished 
not  only  the  spirit  of  freedom,  but  the  sentiments  of  honour  and  the 
feelings  of  shame.  Since  the  age  of  Charles,  the  science  of  bribery 
and  corruption  hath  made  amazing  progress.  Patriots  of  the  last  cen 
tury  told  their  countrymen  what  it  threatened — the  worthies  of  tnis 
day  ought  rather  to  tell  what  hath  been  effected. 

Near  fifty  years  ago,  there  were  more  than  two  hundred  persons 
holding  offices  or  employments  under  the  Crown  in  the  House  of  Com 
mons.  Since  that  time  this  body  like  the  military  (and  for  the  same 
purposes)  have  received  very  notable  additions.  Is  it  to  be  wondered, 
then,  as  we  verge  nearer  to  our  own  times,  we  should  hear  the  most 
august  assembly  in  the  kingdom  declaring  to  the  whole  world,  that 
"the  influence  of  the  Crown  is  almost  irresistible,  being  already  ever- 
grown  and  yet  increasing  :  that  the  most  valuable  rights  of  the  nation 
are  subverted  by  arbitrary  and  illegal  proceedings  :  that  a  flagrant  us 
urpation  (is  made  upon  the  subject)  as  Highly  repugnant  to  every  prin 
ciple  of  the  constitution,  as  the  claim  of  ship-money  by  King  Charles 
the  First,  or  that  of  the  dispensing  power  by  King  fames  the  Second." 
Finally,  considering  all  that  we  have  seen  in  the  course  of  our  review, 
could  any  thing  else  be  expected,  than  what  forty  of  the  House  of 
Lords  openly  protest  they  have  seen  with  great  une'asiness,  a  plan  for 
a  long  time  systematically  carried  on,  for  lowering  all  the  constitu 
tional  powers  of  the  kingdom,  rendering  the  House  of  Commons  odi 
ous,  and  the  House  of  Peers  contemptible  ?" 

Here  let  us  pause  (my  fellow-citizens)  and  consider  :  hath  the  exe- 
crable  plan  thus  systematically  and  for  a  long  time  pursued,  at  last 
taken  effect  ?  Are  all  the  constitutional  powers  of  Great  Britain  so 
lowered  in  the  estimation  of  the  people,  and  their  nobility  despised  ? 
is  their  king  possessed  of  power  sufficient  to  make  fear,  a  substitute 
for  love  ?  has  he  an  army  at  his  absolute  command,  with  which  no 
force  in  his  empire  is  capable  to  cope  ?  judge  ye,  my  countrymen,  of 
these  questions,  upon  which  I  may  not  decide:  judge,  for  yourselves, 
of  the  political  state  of  that  kingdom,  which  claims  a  right  of  dispos 
ing  of  our  all ;  a  right  of  laying  every  burden  that  power  can  impose; 
a  right  of  over- running  our  soil  and  freeholds  with  mercenary  legions, 
and  still  more  mercenary  placemen  and  dependants.  Thus  luxury 
and  riot,  debauchery  and  havock  are  to  become  the  order  and  peace 
of  our  cities,  and  the  stability  and  honour  of  our  times.  To  this  and 
like  hopeful  purposes,  we  find  "  the  fullest  directions  sent  to  the  sev 
eral  officers  of  the  revenue,  that  all  the  produce  of  the  American 
duties,  arising  or  to  arise,  by  virtue  of  any  British  Act  of  Parliament, 
should,  from  time  to  time,  be  paid  to  the  deputy  paymaster  in  America 


JO  SI  A II  QUINCY,  JR.  79 

to  defray  the  subsistence  of  the  troops,  and  any  military  expenses  in 
curred  in  the  colonies."  Highly  favoured  Americans  !  you  are  to  be 
wasted  with  taxes  and  impositions,  in  order  to  satisfy  the  charges  of 
those  armaments  which  are  to  blast  your  country  with  the  most  terri 
ble  of  all  evils — universal  corruption,  and  a  military  government. 

The  reigns  of  past  and  present  great  monarchs  when  compared, 
often  present  a  striking  similitude.  The  Ernp.  Charles  the  Fifth, 
having  exalted  the  royal  prerogative  (or  the  influence  of  the  Crown) 
on  the  ruins  of  the  privileges  of  the  Castilians,  allowed  the  name 
of  the  Cortes  (or  the  Parliament)  to  remain  :  and  the  formality  of 
holding  it  thus  continued,  he  reduced  its  authority  and  jurisdiction 
to  nothing,  and  modelled  it  in  such  a  manner,  that  it  became  (says 
Dr.  Robertson)  rather  a  junto  of  the  servants  of  the  Crown,  than 
an  assembly  of  the  representatives  of  the  people.  The  success  of 
Charles  in  abolishing  the  privileges  of  the  nobles  of  Castile,  en 
couraged  an  invasion  of  the  liberties  of  Arragon,  which  were  yet 
more  extensive. 

Attend  Americans  !  reflect  on  the  situation  of  your  mother  coun 
try,  and  consider  the  late  conduct  of  your  brethren  in  Britain  toward 
this  Continent.  "The  Castilians  (once  high  spirited  and  brave  in  the 
cause  of  freedom)  accustomed  to  subjection  themselves,  assisted  (says 
the  same  illustrious  historian)  in  imposing  the  yoke  on  their  more 
happy  and  independent  neighbours."  Hath  not  Britain  (fallen  from 
her  pristine  freedom  and  glory)  treated  America,  as  Castile  did  Arra 
gon  ?  have  not  Britons  imposed  on  our  necks  the  same  yoke  which  the 
Castilians  imposed  on  the  happy  Arragonese  ?  Yes  ! — I  speak  it  with 
grief ;  I  speak  it  with  anguish  ;  Britons  are  our  oppressors  ;  I  speak 
it  with  shame  ;  I  speak  it  with  indignation  ;  we  are  slaves. 

As  force  first  fixes  the  chains  of  vassalage,  so  cowardice  restrains  an 
enslaved  people  from  bursting  in  sunder  their  bands.  But  the  case 
perhaps  is  not  desperate  till  the  yoke  has  been  so  long  borne,  that  the 
understanding  and  the  spirits  of  the  people  are  sunk  into  ignorance 
and  barbarism,  supineness  and  perfect  inactivity!  Such,  I  yet  trust, 
is  not  the  deplorable  state  of  the  land  of  my  nativity.  How  soon  it 
may  be — we  shall  tremble,  when  we  reflect  that  the  progress  of  thral 
dom  is  secret,  and  its  effects  incredibly  rapid  and  dreadful.  Hence  we' 
see  nations  once  the  freest  and  most  high-spirited  in  Europe,  abject  in 
the  most  humiliating  condition.  The  oath  of  allegiance  to  their  king, 
exhibits  the  true  standard  of  all  just  subjection  to  government,  and 
testifies  a  genuine  sense  and  spirit.  "  We,  who  are  each  of  us  as  good, 
and  who  are  altogether  more  powerful  than  you,  promise  obedience 
to  your  government,  if  you  maintain  our  right  and  liberties;  if  not, 
not."  When  a  people,  endowed  with  such  understandings,  senii- 
ments  and  virtue,  have  fallen  into  a  disgraceful  vassalage- — what  have 
we  in  this  land,  at  this  time,  reason  to  fear!  The  same  Athenians  who 
insulted  and  bid  defiance  to  a  Philip  of  Macedon,  crouched  and 


8o  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

cowled  at  the  feet  of  an  Alexander.  Romans  who  with  righteous  in 
dignation  expelled  royalty,  and  the  Tarquins  bore  with  infamy  and 
shame  the  ravages  of  succeeding  kings  and  emperors.  Englishmen 
who  rose  with  a  divine  enthusiasm  against  the  first  Charles,  disgrace 
fully  submitted  to  the  usurpation  of  a  Cromwell;  and  then,  with  un 
exampled  folly  and  madness,  restored  that  odious  and  execrable  race 
of  tyrants,  the  house  of  Stewart.  Examples,  like  these,  ought  to 
excite  the  deepest  concern;  at  this  day,  they  ought  to  do  more — to 
inspire  fortitude  and  action. 

Providence  from  the  beginning  hath  exercised  this  country  with  sin 
gular  trials.  In  the  earliest  periods  of  our  history,  New  England  is 
seen  surrounded  with  adversaries,  and  alternately  vexed  with  foes 
foreign  and  domestic.  Fierce  as  her  enemies  were  from  abroad,  and 
savage  as  the  natives  of  America  were  within,  her  worst  enemies  will 
be  found  those  of  her  own  household. 

Our  fathers  "left  their  native  country  with  the  strongest  assurance 
that  they  and  their  posterity  should  enjoy  the  privileges  of  free 
natural  born. English  subjects."  Depending  upon  these  assurances, 
they  sustained  hardships  scarcely  paralleled  in  the  annals  of  the  world; 
yet  compassion,  natural  to  the  human  breast,  did  not  restrain  internal 
foes  from  involving  them  in  new  calamities;  nor  did  that  disgrace 
and  contempt,  which  suddenly  fell  upon  the  conspirators,  damp  the 
ardor  of  their  malignity. 

So  early  as  1633  (not  fourteen  years  after  the  first  arrival  at  Ply 
mouth),  "  the  new  settlers  were  in  perils  from  their  own  countrymen." 
In  this,  the  infant  state  of  the  country,  while  exposed  to  innumerable 
hardships,  vexed  with  hostilities  from  Europe  and  the  depredations  of 
savages,  there  existed  men  who  "  beheld  the  Massachusetts  with  an 
envious  eye."  The  characteristics  of  the  first  conspirators  against  this 
province,  were  secrecy  and  industry;  they  had  effected  the  mischief 
before  the  people  knew  of  their  danger.  Morton,  in  his  letter  to 
Jefferies  the  first  of  May,  1634,  writes,  that  "the  Massachusetts  patent, 
by  an  order  of  council,  was  brought  in  view,  and  the  privileges  well 
scanned."  But  by  whom?  very  like  some  of  more  modern  fame;  an 
archbishop,  and  the  Privy  Council  of  Charles  the  First!  excellent  essay- 
masters  for  New  England  privileges— most  renowned  judges  of  the 
rights  and  liberties  of  mankind!  They  first  discover  the  chaitet  '  tu 
be  void,"  and  then,  no  doubt,  advise  to  the  issuing  of  the  commission 
found  by  my  Lord  Barrington  in  the  3ist  vol.  of  Mr.  Petyt's  manu 
script,  "a  commission  directed  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the 
Lord  Chancellor,  and  other  lords  of  the  Privy  Council,  by  which  they 
are  impowered  to  prepare  laws  for  the  better  government  of  the 
colonies;"  "which  were  afterwards  to  be  enforced  by  the  King's 
proclamation." 

This  was  considered  as  a  master-stroke  of  policy;  and  the  public 
conspirators  of  the  day  displayed  the  plumage  of  triumph  with  that 


JO  SI  A  PI   QUINCY,  JR.  8 1 

spirit  and  ostentation  which  have  descended  to  their  successors.  But 
how  easy  is  it,  with  Providence,  to  disappoint  the  projects,  and  humble 
the  pride  of  man!  Laud  and  his  master,  in  the  subsequent  periods  of 
history,  are  found  too  busied  with  their  own  concerns,  to  attend  much 
to  those  of  others.  Hence  this  extraordinary  commission  was  never 
executed,  and  the  plan  set  on  foot  within  three  years  after,  "  for  re 
voking  the  patent  of  the  Massachusetts,"  proved  abortive.  Literary 
correspondence  inimical  to  the  province  commenced  with  Archbishop 
Laud  in  1638.  But  in  the  pious  language  of  our  fathers,  "the  Lord 
delivered  them  from  the  oppressor,"  "  against  all  men's  expectations 
they  were  encouraged,  and  much  blame  and  disgrace  fell  upon  their 
adversaries,"  Yet  notwithstanding  "  a  spirit  full  of  malignity  against 
the  country  (not  very  long  after)  much  endangered  both  its  civil  and 
religious  liberties." 

More  than  a  century  ago,  "the  great  privileges  of  New  England 
were  matter  of  envy;"  and,  accordingly,  complaints  multiplied  to 
Cromwell,  no  doubt  for  the  benevolent  purpose  of  abridging  (what 
were  called)  English  liberties.  "All  attempts  to  the  prejudice  of  the 
colony,  being  to  no  purpose"  with  the  Protector,  the  adversaries  of 
the  province  were  despondent,  until  the  restoration  of  Charles  II 
gave  new  hopes;  when  "petitions  and  complaints  were  preferred 
against  the  colony  to  the  King  in  council,  and  to  the  Parliament." 

"False  friends  and  open  enemies"  now  became  the  terror  of  the 
country  while  new  foes  brought  new  charges  to  render  it  obnoxious. 
"  The  great  men  and  natives  of  the  country,  made  their  complaints 
also  to  the  King."  The  consequences  were  such  as  might  be  ex 
pected.  "  Four  persons  were  sent  over  from  England,  the  one  of 
them  the  known  and  professed  enemy  of  the  country,  with  such  ex 
traordinary  powers  (that  our  ancestors  with  grief  complain),  they  were 
to  be  subjected  to  the  arbitrary  pov/er  of  strangers  proceeding  not  by 
any  established  law,  but  their  own  discretion.."  How  astonishingly 
uniform,  how  cruelly  consistent  has  been  the  conduct  of  Britain  from 
that  day  to  the  present? 

Amid  all  these  severe  trials,  the  inhabitants  of  New  England  con 
ducted  with  a  virtue  and  piety  worthy  remembrance  and  imitation 
"  They  appealed  to  God,  they  came  not  into  this  wilderness  to  see) 
great  things  for  themselves,  but  for  the  sake  of  a  poor  and  quiet  life.' 
They  testified  to  their  sovereign,  that  "their  liberties  were  dearer  to 
them  than  their  lives."  "  Evil  minded  men  continue,  however,  to 
misrepresent  them,"  and  what  is  almost  incredible,  the  distresses  ot 
the  colony,  during  a  war,  which  excited  compassion  in  some,  yet  these 
very  distresses  were  improved  by  others  to  render  the  colony  more 
obnoxious." 

Although  "  this  is  certain,  that  as  the  colony  was  at  first  settled  so 
it  was  preserved  from  ruin  without  any  charge  to  the  mother  country;' 
yet  in  the  height  of  the  distress  of  war,  "and  whilst  the  authority 


82  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

of  the  colony  was  contending  with  the  natives  for  the  posses 
sion  of  the  soil;  complaints  were  making  in  England  which  struck 
at  the  powers  of  government."  With  what  ferocity  have  Americans 
been  pursued  from  the  earliest  times  ?  That  demon  of  malevolence, 
which  went  forth  at  the  beginning,  still  spirits  up  our  adversaries,  and 
persecutes  the  country  with  unabated  malice. 

"  Randolph,  who,  the  people  of  New  England  said,  went  up  and 
down  seeking  to  devour  them,"  was  the  next  active  emissary  against 
the  province.  '"  He  was  incessant  and  open  in  endeavoring  the  alter 
ation  of  the  constitution."  In  his  open  enmity,  he  appears  far  less 
odious  than  those  xvho  have  been  equally  inimical  and  equally  inde 
fatigable  to  the  same  purpose,  with  more  cowardice,  dissimulation, 
and  hypocrisy.  Eight  voyages  were  made  across  the  Atlantic  in  the 
course  of  nine  years  by  this  inverate  spirit,  with  hostile  intentions  to 
the  government.  Nor  will  it  be  surprising  to  find  him  thus  expose 
his  life  upon  the  ocean,  when  such  services  acquired  "  new  powers." 
Have  we  not  seen,  in  our  own  day,  a  similar  policy  adopted  and  the 
same  object  operating  as  a  motive  to  the  like  execrable  conduct  ? 
Such  has  been  the  strange  though  unhappily  consistent  conduct  of 
our  mother  country,  that  she  has  laid  temptations  and  given  rewards 
and  stipends  to  those  who  have  slandered  and  betrayed  her  own 
children.  Incited  probably  by  the  same  motive,  Cranfield  rose  up  as 
in  league  with  Randolph,  and  "  infamously  represented  the  colony  as 
rogues  and  rebels." 

Libels  and  conspiracies  of  this  nature  called  for  the  interposition  of 
authority:  express  laws  were  enacted  for  the  prevention  of  like 
treasonable  practices  for  the  future,  and,  death  being  deemed  the 
proper  punishment  for  an  enemy  to  his  country,  traitors  to  the  con 
stitution  were  to  suffer  that  penalty.  Thus  a  "conspiracy  to  invade 
the  commonwealth,  or  any  treacherous  attempt  to  alter  and  subvert 
fundamentally  the  frame  of  polity  and  government,  was  made  a 
capital  offence."  Did  our  laws  now  contain  a  like  provision,  public 
conspirators  and  elevated  parricides  would  tremble  for  their  heads, 
who  do  not  shudder  at  the  enormity  of  their  crimes.  There  are  char 
acters  in  society  so  devoid  of  virtue  and  endued  with  ferocity  that 
nothing  but  sanguinary  laws  can  restrain  their  wickedness.  Even  the 
distress  and  cries  of  their  native  country  excite  no  compassion;  rever 
ence  for  fathers  and  affection  for  children  cause  no  reluctance  at 
measures  which  stain  the  glorious  lineage  of  their  ancestors  with 
infamy,  and  blast  their  spreading  progeny  with  oppression.  That 
emanation  from  the  Deity,  which  creates  them  intelligents,  seems  to 
cease  its  operation,  and  the  tremendous  idea  of  a  God  and  futurity, 
excites  neither  repentance  or  reformation. 

Thus,  my  countrymen,  from  the  days  of  Gardiner  and  Moreton, 
Georges  and  Mason,  Randolph  and  Cranfield,  down  to  the  present 
day,  the  inhabitants  of  this  northern  region  have  constantly  been  in 


JO  SI  A II   QULVClr,  JR.  83 

danger  and  troubles  from  foes  open  and  secret,  abroad  and  in  their 
bosom.  Our  freedom  has  been  the  object  of  envy,  and  to  make  void 
the  charter  of  our  liberties  the  work  and  labor  of  an  undiminished 
race  of  villains.  One  cabal  having  failed  of  success,  new  conspirators 
have  rose,  and,  what  the  first  could  not  make  "void,"  the  next 
'' humbly  desired  to  revoke."  To  this  purpose  one  falsehood  after 
another  hath  been  fabricated  and  spread  abroad  with  equal  turpitude 
and  equal  effrontery.  That  minute  detail,  which  would  present  actors 
now  on  the  stage,  is  the  province  of  history.  She,  inexorably  severe 
towards  the  eminently  guilty,  will  delineate  their  characters  with  the 
point  of  a  diamond;  and,  thus  blazoned  in  the  face  of  day,  the  abhor- 
ence  and  execrations  of  mankind  will  consign  them  to  an  infamous 
immortality. 

So  great  has  been  the  credulity  of  the  British  court,  from  the  begin 
ning,  or  such  hath  been  the  activity  of  false  brethren,  that  no  tale 
inimical  to  the  Northern  colonies,  however  false  or  absurd,  but  what 
hath  found  credit  with  administration,  and  operated  to  the  prejudice 
of  the  country.  Thus  it  was  told  and  believed  in  England,  that  we 
were  not  in  earnest  in  the  expedition  against  Canada  at  the  beginning 
of  this  century,  and  that  the  country  did  everything  in  its  power  to 
defeat  the  success  of  it,  and  that  the  misfortune  of  that  attempt  ought 
to  be  wholly  attributed  to  the  northern  colonies.  While  nothing 
could  be  more  obvious  than  that  New  England  had  exhausted  her 
youngest  blood  and  all  her  treasures  in  the  undertaking,  and  that 
every  motive  of  self-preservation,  happiness,  and  safety,  must  have 
operated  to  excite  these  provinces  to  the  most  spirited  and  persevering 
measures  against  Canada. 

The  people  who  are  attacked  by  bad  men  have  a  testimony  of  their 
merit,  as  the  constitution  which  is  invaded  by  powerful  men,  hath  an 
evidence  of  its  value.  The  path  of  our  duty  needs  no  minute  delinea 
tion — it  lies  level  to  the  eye.  Let  us  apply,  then,  like  men  sensible  of 
its  importance  and  determined  on  its  fulfillment.  The  inroads  upon 
our  public  liberty  call  for  reparation;  the  wrongs  we  have  sustained 
call  for — justice.  That  reparation  and  that  justice  may  yet  be  ob 
tained  by  union,  spirit,  and  firmness.  But  to  divide  and  conquer  was 
the  maxim  of  the  devil  in  the  garden  of  Eden — and  to  disunite  and 
enslave  hath  been  the  principle  of  all  his  votaries  from  that  period  to 
the  present.  The  crimes  of  the  guilty  are  to  them  the  cords  of  asso 
ciation  and  dread  of  punishment,  the  indissoluble  bond  of  union. 
The  combinations  of  public  robbers  ought,  therefore,  to  cement 
patriots  and  heroes;  and,  as  the  former  plot  and  conspire  to  under 
mine  and  destroy  the  commonwealth,  the  latter  ought  to  form  a 
compact  for  opposition — a  band  of  vengeance. 

What  insidious  arts,  and  what  detestable  practices  have  been  used 
to  deceive,  disunite,  and  enslave  the  good  people  of  this  continent  t 
The  mystical  appellations  of  loyalty  and  allegiance,  the  venerable 


84  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

names  of  government  and  good  order,  and  the  sacred  ones  of  piety 
and  public  virtue,  have  been  alternately  prostituted  to  that  abominable 
purpose.  All  the  windings  and  guises,  subterfuges,  and  doublings, 
of  which  the  human  soul  is  susceptible,  have  been  displayed  on  the 
occasion.  But  secrets  which  were  thought  impenetrable  are  no  longer 
hid;  characters  deeply  disguised  are  openly  revealed;  the  discovery  of 
gross  imposters  hath  generally  preceded,  but  a  short  time,  their  utter 
extirpation. 

Be  not  again,  my  countrymen,  "  easily  captivated  with  the  appear 
ances  only  of  wisdom  and  piety — professions  of  a  regard  to  liberty 
and  of  a  strong  attachment  to  the  publick  interest."  Your  fathers 
have  been  explicitly  charged  with  this  folly  by  one  of  their  posterity. 
Avoid  this  and  all  similar  errors.  Be  cautious  against  the  deception 
of  appearances.  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them,  was  the  saying 
of  One  who  perfectly  knew  the  human  heart.  Judge  of  affairs  which 
concern  social  happiness  by  facts.  Judge  of  man  by  his  deeds.  For 
it  is  very  certain  that  pious  zeal  for  days  and  times,  for  mint  and 
cummin,  hath  often  been  pretended  by  those  who  were  infidels  at 
bottom;  and,  it  is  as  certain,  that  attachment  to  the  dignity  of  govern 
ment  and  the  king's  service  hath  often  flowed  from  the  mouths  of  men 
who  harbored  the  darkest  machinations  against  the  true  end  of  the 
former,  and  were  destitute  of  every  right  principle  of  loyalty  to  the 
latter.  Hence,  then,  ca're  and  circumspection  are  necessary  branches 
of  political  duty  And  as  "it  is  much  easier  to  restrain  liberty  from 
running  into  licentiousness  than  power  from  swelling  into  tyranny 
and  oppression;"  so  much  more  caution  and  resistance  are  required 
against  the  overbearing  of  rulers  than  the  extravagance  of  the  people. 

To  give  no  more  authority  to  any  order  of  state,  and  to  place  no 
greater  public  confidence  in  any  man,  than  is  necessary  for  the  general 
welfare,  may  be  considered  by  the  people  as  an  important  point  of 
policy.  But  though  craft  and  hypocrisy  are  prevalent,  yet  piety  and 
virtue  have  a  real  existence;  duplicity  and  political  imposture  abound, 
yet  benevolence  and  public  spirit  are  not  altogether  banished  by  the 
world.  As  wolves  will  appear  in  sheep's  clothing,  so  superlative 
knaves  and  parricides  will  assume  the  vesture  of  the  man  of  virtue 
and  patriotism. 

These  things  are  permitted  by  Providence,  no  doubt,  for  wise  and 
good  reasons.  Man  was  created  a  rational,  and  was  designed  for  an 
active  being.  His  faculties  of  intelligence  and  force  were  given  him 
for  use.  When  the  wolf,  therefore,  is  found  devouring  the  flock,  no  hier 
archy  forbids  a  seizure  of  the  victim  for  sacrifice;  so  also,  when  digni 
fied  impostors  are  caught  destroying  those,  whom  their  arts  deceived 
and  their  stations  destined  them  to  protect, — the  sabre  of  justice 
flashes  righteousness  at  the  stroke  of  execution. 

Yet  be  not  amused,  my  countrymen! — the  extirpation  of  bondage, 
and  the  re-establishment  of  freedom  are  not  of  easy  acquisition.  The 


JOHN  HANCOCK.  85 

worst  passions  of  the  human  heart,  and  the  most  subtle  projects  of  the 
human  mind  are  leagued  against  you;  and  principalities  and  powers 
have  acceded  to  the  combination.  Trials  and  conflicts  you  must, 
therefore,  endure; — hazards  and  jeopardies — of  life  and  fortune — will 
attend  the  struggle.  Such  is  the  fate  of  all  noble  exertions  for  public 
liberty  and  social  happiness. — Enter  not  the  lists  without  thought  and 
consideration,  lest  you  arm  with  timidity  and  combat  with  irresolu 
tion.  Having  engaged  in  the  conflict,  let  nothing  discourage  your 
vigor,  or  repel  your  perseverance: — Remember,  that  submission  to 
the  yoke  of  bondage  is  the  worst  that  that  can  befall  a  people  after 
the  most  fierce  and  unsuccessful  resistance.  What  can  the  misfortune 
of  vanquishment  take  away,  which  despotism  and  rapine  would  spare  ? 
It  had  been  easy  (said  the  great  law-giver  Solon  to  the  Athenians), 
to  repress  the  advances  of  tyranny,  and  prevent  its  establishment,  but 
now  it  is  established  and  grown  to  some  height  it  would  be  more 
glorious  to  demolish  it.  But  nothing  glorious  is  accomplished,  noth 
ing  great  is  attained,  nothing  valuable  is  secured  without  magnanimity 
of  mind  and  devotion  of  heart  to  the  service — Brutus-like,  therefore, 
dedicate  yourselves  at  this  day  to  the  service  of  your  country;  and 
henceforth  live  a  life  of  liberty  and  glory. — "  On  the  ides  of  March" 
(said  the  great  and  good  man  to  his  friend  Cassius,  just  before  the 
battle  of  Philippi),  "On  the  ides  of  March  I  devoted  my  life  to  my 
country,  and  since  that  time,  I  have  lived  a  life  of  liberty  and  glory." 
Inspired  with  public  virtue,  touched  with  the  wrongs  and  indignant 
at  the  insults  offered  his  country,  the  high-spirited  Cassius  exhibits  an 
heroic  example: — "  Resolved  as  we  are"  (replies  the  hero  to  his 
friend),  "resolved  as  we  are,  let  us  march  against  the  enemy,  for 
though  we  should  not  conquer,  we  have  nothing  to  fear." 


ORATION. 
JOHN  HANCOCK. 

Boston,   March  5,  1774. 

Vendidit  hie  auro,  patriam,  dominumque  potentem 
Imposuit:  fixit  leges  pretio  atque  refixit. 
Non,  mihi  si  linguae  centum  sint,  oraque  centum, 
Ferrea  vox,  omnes  scelerum:  comprendere  formas, 

— possim.—  Virg, 

MEN,  BRETHREN,  FATHERS  AND  FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN! — The  atten 
tive  gravity,  the  venerable  appearance  of  this  crowded  audience;  the 
dignity  which  I  behold  in  the  countenances  of  so  many  in  this  great 
assembly;  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion  upon  which  we  have  met  to 
gether,  joined  to  a  consideration  of  the  part  I  am  to  take  in  the  im 
portant  business  of  this  day,  fill  me  with  an  awe  hitherto  unknown; 


86  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

and  heighten  the  sense  which  I  have  ever  had,  of  my  unworthiness  to 
fill  this  sacred  desk;  but  allured  by  the  call  of  some  of  my  respected 
fellow-citizens,  with  whose  request  it  is  always  my  greatest  pleasure 
to  comply,  I  almost  forgot  my  want  of  ability  to  perform  what  they 
required.  In  this  situation  I  find  my  only  support,  in  assuring  myself 
that  a  generous  people  will  not  severely  censure  what  they  know  was 
well  intended,  though  its  want  of  merit,  should  prevent  their  being 
able  to  applaud  it.  And  I  pray,  that  my  sincere  attachment  to  the 
interest  of  my  country,  and  hearty  detestation  of  every  design  formed 
against  her  liberties,  may  be  admitted  as  some  apology,  for  my  ap 
pearance  in  this  place. 

I  have  always,  from  my  earliest  youth,  rejoiced  in  the  felicity  of  my 
fellow-men;  and  have  ever  considered  it  as  the  indispensable  duty  of 
every  member  of  society  to  promote,  as  far  as  in  him  lies,  the  pros 
perity  of  every  individual,  but  more  especially  of  the  community  to 
which  he  belongs,  and  also,  as  a  faithful  subject  of  the  state,  to  use 
his  utmost  endeavors  to  detect,  and  having  detected,  strenuously  to 
oppose  every  traitorous  plot  which  its  enemies  may  devise  for  its  de> 
struction.  Security  to  the  persons  and  properties  of  the  governed,  is 
so  obviously  the  design  and  end  of  civil  government,  that  to  attempt 
a  logical  proof  of  it,  would  be  like  burning  tapers  at  noonday,  to 
assist  the  sun  in  enlightening  the  world;  and  it  cannot  be  either 
virtuous  or  honorable,  to  attempt  to  support  a  government,  of  which 
this  is  not  the  great  and  principal  basis;  and  it  is  to  the  last  degree 
vicious  and  infamous  to  attempt  to  support  a  government,  which 
manifestly  tends  to  render  the  persons  and  properties  of  the  governed 
insecure.  Some  boast  of  being  friends  to  government;  I  am  a  friend 
to  righteous  government  founded  upon  the  principles  of  reason  and 
justice;  but  I  glory  in  publicly  avowing  my  eternal  enmity  to  tyranny. 
Is  the  present  system,  which  the  British  administration  have  adopted 
for  the  government  of  the  colonies,  a  righteous  government?  or  is  it 
tyranny? — Here  suffer  me  to  ask  (and  would  to  Heaven  there  could 
be  an  answer)  what  tenderness,  what  regard,  respect  or  consideration 
has  Great  Britain  shown,  in  their  late  transactions,  for  the  security  of 
the  persons  or  properties  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  colonies  ?  or  rather, 
what  have  they  omitted  doing  to  destroy  that  security  ?  they  have  de 
clared  that  they  have,  ever  had,  and  of  right  ought  ever  to  have,  full 
power  to  make  laws  of  sufficient  validity  to  bind  the  colonies  in  all 
cases  whatever:  they  have  exercised  this  pretended  right  by  imposing 
a  tax  upon  us  without  our  consent;  and  lest  we  should  show  some  re 
luctance  at  parting  with  our  property,  her  fleets  and  armies  are  sent 
to  enforce  their  mad  pretensions.  The  town  of  Boston,  ever  faithful 
to  the  British  crown,  has  been  invested  by  a  British  fleet:  the  troops 
of  George  the  III.  hare  crossed  the  wide  Atlantic,  not  to  engage  an 
enemy,  but  to  assist  a  band  of  traitors  in  trampling  on  the  rights  and 
liberties  of  his  most  loyal  subjects  in  America — those  rights  and  liber- 


JOHN  HANCOCK.  87 

ties  which,  as  a  father,  he  ought  ever  to  regard,  and  as  a  king,  he  is 
bound,  in  honor,  to  defend  from  violations,  even  at  the  risk  of  his 
own  life. 

Let  not  the  history  of  the  illustrious  House  of  Brunswick  inform 
posterity,  that  a  king  descended  from  that  glorious  monarch,  George 
the  II.  once  sent  his  British  subjects  to  conquer  and  enslave  his  sub 
jects  in  America,  but  be  perpetual  infamy  entailed  upon  that  villain 
who  dared  to  advise  his  master  to  such  execrable  measures;  for  it  was 
easy  to  forsee  the  consequences  which  so  naturally  followed  upon 
sending  troops  into  America,  to  enforce  obedience  to  acts  of  the 
British  Parliament,  which  neither  God  nor  man  ever  empowered  them 
to  make.  It  was  reasonable  to  expect  that  troops,  who  knew  the 
errand  they  were  sent  upon,  would  treat  the  people  whom  they  were 
to  subjugate,  with  a  cruelty  and  haughtiness,  which  too  often  buries 
the  honorable  character  of  a  soldier  in  the  disgraceful  name  of  an  un 
feeling  ruffian.  The  troops,  upon  their  first  arrival,  took  possession 
of  our  senate-house,  and  pointed  their  cannon  against  the  judgment 
hall,  and  even  continued  them  there  whilst  the  supreme  court  of  judi 
cature  for  this  province  was  actually  sitting  to  decide  upon  the  lives 
and  fortunes  of  the  king's  subjects.  Our  streets  nightly  resounded 
with  the  noise  of  riot  and  debauchery:  our  peaceful  citizens  were 
hourly  exposed  to  shameful  insults,  and  often  felt  the  effects  of  their 
violence  and  outrage. — But  this  was  not  all:  as  though  they  thought 
it  not  enough  to  violate  our  civil  rights,  they  endeavored  to  deprive 
us  of  the  enjoyment  of  our  religious  privileges;  to  vitiate  our  morals, 
and  thereby  render  us  deserving  of  destruction.  Hence  the  rude  din 
of  arms  which  broke  in  upon  your  solemn  devotions  in  your  temples, 
on  that  day  hallowed  by  heaven,  and  set  apart  by  God  himself  for  his 
peculiar  worship.  Hence,  impious  oaths  and  blasphemies  so  often 
tortured  your  unaccustomed  ear.  Hence,  all  the  arts  which  idleness 
and  luxury  could  invent,  were  used  to  betray  our  youth  of  ons  sex 
into  extravagance  and  effeminacy,  and  of  the  other  to  infamy  and  ruin; 
and  did  they  not  succeed  but  too  well  ?  did  not  a  reverence  for  religion 
sensibly  decay?  did  not  our  infants  almost  learn  to  lisp  out  curses  be 
fore  they  knew  their  horrid  import  ?  did  not  our  youth  forget  they 
were  Americans,  and  regardless  of  the  admonitions  of  the  wise  and 
aged,  servilely  copy  from  their  tyrants  those  vices  which  finally  must 
overthrow  the  empire  of  Great  Britain?  and  must  I  be  compelled  to 
acknowledge,  that  even  the  noblest,  fairest  part  of  all  the  lower  crea 
tion  did  not  entirely  escape  the  cursed  snare?  when  virtue  has  once 
erected  her  throne  within  the  female  breast,  it  is  upon  so  solid  a  basis 
that  nothing  is  able  to  expel  the  heavenly  inhabitant.  But  have  there 
not  been  some,  few  indeed.  I  hope,  whose  youth  and  inexperience 
have  rendered  them  a  prey  to  wretches,  whom,  upon  the  least  reflec- 
lian,  they  would  have  despised  and  hated  as  foes  to  God  and  their 
country?  I  fear  there  have  been  some  such  unhappy  instances;  or 
A.  P.-4. 


88  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

why  have  I  seen  an  honest  father  clothed  with  shame,  or  why  a  virtu 
ous  mother  drowned  in  tears  ? 

But  I  forbear,  and  come  reluctantly  to  the  transaction  of  that  dismal 
night,  when  in  such  quick  succession  we  felt  the  extremes  of  grief,  as- 
toni.  hment  and  rage;  when  Heaven  in  anger,  for  a  dreadful  moment 
suffered  hell  to  take  the  reins;  when  Satan  with  his  chosen  band  opened 
the  sluices  of  New  England's  blood,  and  sacrilegiously  polluted  our 
land  with  the  dead  bodies  of  her  guiltless  sons.  Let  this  sad  tale  of 
death  never  be  told  without  a  tear;  let  not  the  heaving  bosom  cease  to 
burn  with  a  manly  indignation  at  the  barbarous  story,  through  the  long 
tracts  of  future  time:  let  every  parent  tell  the  shameful  story  to  his 
listening  children  till  tears  of  pity  glisten  in  their  eyes,  and  boiling 
passions  shake  their  tender  frames;  and  whilst  the  anniversary  of  that 
ill-fated  night  is  kept  a  jubilee  in  the  grim  court  of  pandasmonium,  let 
all  America  join  in  one  common  prayer  to  heaven,  that  the  inhuman, 
unprovoked  murders  of  the  fifth  of  March,  1770,  planned  by  Hillsbor- 
ough,  and  a  knot  of  treacherous  knaves  in  Boston,  and  executed  by 
the  cruel  hand  of  Preston  and  his  sanguinary  coadjutors,  may  ever 
stand  on  history  without  a  parallel.  But  what,  my  countrymen,  with 
held  the  ready  arm  of  vengeance  from  executing  instant  justice  on  the 
vile  assassins  ?  perhaps  you  feared  promiscuous  carnage  might  ensue, 
and  that  the  innocent  might  share  the  fate  of  those  who  had  performed 
the  infernal  deed.  But  were  not  all  guilty?  were  you  not  too  tender 
of  the  lives  of  those  who  came  to  fix  a  yoke  on  your  necks?  but  I  must 
not  too  severely  blame  a  fault,  which  great  souls  only  can  commit. 
May  that  magnificence  of  spirit  which  scorns  the  low  pursuits  of  malice, 
may  that  generous  compassion  which  often  preserves  from  ruin,  even 
a  guilty  villain,  forever  actuate  the  noble  bosoms  of  Americans!  But 
let  not'  the  miscreant  host  vainly  imagine  that  we  feared  their  arms. 
No;  them  we  despised;  we  dread  nothing  but  slavery.  Death  is  the 
creature  of  a  poltroon's  brains;  'tis  immortality  to  sacrifice  ourselves 
for  the  salvation  of  our  country.  We  fear  not  death.  That  gloomy 
night,  the  pale  faced  moon,  and  the  affrighted  stars  that  hurried 
through  the  sky,  can  witness  that  we  fear  not  death.  Our  hearts  which, 
at  the  recollection,  glow  with  rage  that  four  revolving  years  have 
scarcely  taught  us  to  restrain,  can  witness  that  we  fear  not  death;  and 
happy  it  is  for  those  who  dared  to  insult  us,  that  their  naked  bones  are 
now  piled  up  an  everlasting  monument  of  Massachusetts'  bravery. 
But  they  retired,  they  fled,  and  in  that  flight  they  found  their  only 
safety.  We  then  expected  that  the  hand  of  public  justice  would  soon 
inflict  that  punishment  upon  the  murderers,  which,  by  the  laws  of  God 
and  man,  they  had  incurred.  But  let  the  unbiassed  pen  of  a  Robert 
son,  or  perhaps  of  some  equally  famed  American,  conduct  this  trial 
before  the  great  tribunal  of  succeeding  generations.  And  though  the 
murderers  may  escape  the  just  resentment  of  an  enraged  people; 
though  drowsy  justice,  intoxicated  by  the  poisonous  draught  prepared 


JOHN   HANCOCK.  89 

for  her  cup,  still  nods  upon  her  rotten  seat,  yet  be  assured,  such  com 
plicated  crimes  will  meet  their  due  reward.  Tell  me,  ye  bloody  butch 
ers!  ye  villains  high  and  low!  ye  wretches  who  contrived,  as  well  as 
you  who  executed  the  inhuman  deed!  do  you  not  feel  the  goads  and 
stings  of  conscious  guilt  pierce  through  your  savage  bosoms  ?  though 
some  of  you  may  think  yourselves  exalted  to  a  height  that  bids  defiance 
to  human  justice,  and  others  shroud  yourselves  beneath  the  mask  of 
hypocrisy,  and  build  your  hopes  of  safety  on  the  low  arts  of  cunning, 
chicanery  and  falsehood;  yet  do  you  not  sometimes  feel  the  gnawing 
of  that  worm  which  never  dies?  do  not  the  injured  shades  of  Maverick, 
Gray,  Caldwell,  Attucks  and  Carr,  attend  you  in  your  solitary  walks, 
arrest  you  even  in  the  midst  of  your  debaucheries,  and  fill  even  your 
dreams  with  terror?  but  if  the  unappeased  manes  of  the  dead  should 
not  disturb  their  murderers,  yet  surely  even  your  obdurate  hearts  must 
shrink,  and  your  guilty  blood  must  chill  within  your  rigid  veins,  when 
you  behold  the  miserable  Monk,  the  wretched  victim  of  your  savage 
cruelty.  Observe  his  tottering  knees,  which  scarce  sustain  his  wasted 
body;  look  on  his  haggard  eyes;  mark  well  the  death-like  paleness  on 
his  fallen  cheek,  and  tell  me,  does  not  the  sight  plant  daggers  in  your 
souls?  unhappy  Monk!  cut  off  in  the  gay  morn  of  manhood,  from  all 
the  joys  which  sweeten  life,  doomed  to  drag  on  a  pitiful  existence, 
without  even  a  hope  to  taste  the  pleasures  of  returning  health!  yet 
Monk,  thou  livest  not  in  vain;  thou  livest  a  warning  to  thy  country, 
which  sympathizes  with  thee  in  thy  sufferings;  thou  livest  an  affecting, 
an  alarming  instance  of  the  unbounded  violence  which  lust  of  power, 
assisted  by  a  standing  army,  can  lead  a  traitor  to  commit. 

For  us  he  bled,  and  now  languishes.  The  wounds  by  which  he  is 
tortured  to  a  lingering  death,  were  aimed  at  our  country!  surely  the 
meek-eyed  charity  can  never  behold  such  sufferings  with  indifference. 
Nor  can  her  lenient  hand  forbear  to  pour  oil  and  wine  into  these 
wounds,  and  to  assuage  at  least,  what  it  cannot  heal. 

Patriotism  is  ever  united  with  humanity  and  compassion.  This 
noble  affection  which  impels  us  to  sacrifice  everything  dear,  even  life 
itself,  to  our  country,  involves  in  it  a  common  sympathy  and  tender 
ness  for  every  citizen,  and  must  ever  have  a  particular  feeling  for  one 
who  suffers  in  a  public  cause.  Thoroughly  persuaded  of  this,  I  need 
not  add  a  word  to  engage  your  compassion  and  bounty  towards  a  fel 
low  citizen,  who,  with  long  protracted  anguish,  falls  a  victim  to  the 
relentless  rage  of  our  common  enemies. 

Ye  dark  designing  knaves,  ye  murderers,  parricides!  how  dare  you 
tread  upon  the  earth,  which  has  drank  in  the  blood  of  slaughtered  in 
nocents,  shed  by  your  wicked  hands?  how  dare  you  breathe  that  air 
which  wafted  to  the  ear  of  heaven,  the  groans  of  those  who  fell  a  sacri 
fice  to  your  accursed  ambition?  but  if  the  laboring  earth  doth  not 
expand  her  jaws;  if  the  air  you  breathe  is  not  commissioned  to  be  the 
minister  of  death  yet  hear  it,  and  tremble!  the  eye  of  heaven  penetrates 


90  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

the  darkest  chambers  of  the  soul,  traces  the  leading  clue  through  all 
the  labyrinths  which  your  industrious  folly  has  devised;  and  you,  how 
ever  you  may  have  screened  yourselves  from  human  eyes,  must  be 
arraigned,  must  lift  your  hands,  red  with  the  blood  of  those  whose 
death  you  have  procured,  at  the  tremendous  bar  of  God. 

But  I  gladly  quit  the  gloomy  theme  of  death,  and  leave  you  to  im 
prove  the  thought  of  that  important  day,  when  our  naked  souls  must 
stand  before  that  being,  from  whom  nothing  can  be  hid.  I  would  net 
dwell  too  long  upon  the  horrid  effects  which  have  already  followed 
from  quartering  regular  troops  in  this  town;  let  our  misfortunes  teach 
posterity  to  guard  against  such  evils  for  the  future.  Standing  armies 
are  sometimes  (I  would  by  no  means  say  generally,  much  less  univer 
sally)  composed  of  persons  who  have  rendered  themselves  unfit  to  live 
in  civil  society;  who  have  no  other  motives  of  conduct  than  those 
which  a  desire  of  the  present  gratification  of  their  passions  suggests; 
who  have  no  property  in  any  country;  men  who  have  given  up  their 
own  liberties,  and  envy  those  who  enjoy  liberty;  who  are  equally  indif 
ferent  to  the  glory  of  a  George  or  a  Louis;  who  for  the  addition  of  one 
penny  a  day  to  their  wages,  would  desert  from  the  Christian  cross, 
and  fight  under  the  crescent  of  the  Turkish  sultan,  from  such  men  as 
these,  what  has  not  a  state  to  fear  ?  with  such  as  these,  usurping  Caesar 
passed  the  Rubicon;  with  such  as  these  he  humbled  mighty  Rome,  and 
forced  the  mistress  of  the  world  to  own  a  master  in  a  traitor.  These 
are  the  men  whom  sceptered  robbers  now  employ  to  frustrate  the  de 
signs  of  God,  and  render  vain  the  bounties  which  his  gracious  hand 
pours  indiscriminately  upon  his  creatures.  By  these  the  miserable 
slaves  in  Turkey,  Persia,  and  many  other  extensive  countries,  are 
rendered  truly  wretched,  though  their  air  is  salubrious,  and  their  soil 
luxuriously  fertile.  By  these  France  and  Spain,  though  blessed  by 
nature  with  all  that  administers  to  the  convenience  of  life,  have  been 
reduced  to  that  contemptible  state  in  which  they  now  appear;  and  by 
these  Britain but  if  I  was  possessed  of  the  gift  of  pro 
phecy,  I  dare  not,  except  by  divine  command,  unfold  the  leaves  on 
which  the  destiny  of  that  once  powerful  kingdom  is  inscribed. 

But,  since  standing  armies  are  so  hurtful  to  a  state,  perhaps  my 
countrymen  may  demand  some  substitute,  some  other  means  of 
rendering  us  secure  against  the  incursions  of  a  foreign  enemy.  But 
can  you  be  one  moment  at  a  loss  ?  will  not  a  well  disciplined  militia 
afford  you  ample  security  against  foreign  foes?  we  want  not  courage; 
it  is  discipline  alone  in  which  we  are  exceeded  by  the  most  formidable 
troops  that  ever  trod  the  earth.  Surely  our  hearts  flutter  no  more  at 
the  sound  of  war  than  did  those  of  the  immortal  band  of  Persia,  the 
Macedonian  phalanx,  the  invincible  Roman  legions,  the  Turkish 
Janissaries,  the  Gens  des  Armes  of  France,  or  the  well-known  grena 
diers  of  Britain.  A  well  disciplined  militia  is  a  safe,  an  honorable 
guard  to  a  community  like  this,  whose  inhabitants  are  by  nature 


JOHN  HANCOCK.  91 

brave,  and  are  laudably  tenacious  of  that  freedom  in  which  they  were 
born.  From  a  well  regulated  militia  we  have  nothing  to  fear;  their 
interest  is  the  same  with  that  of  the  state.  When  a  country  is  in 
vaded,  the  militia  are  ready  to  appear  in  its  defence;  they  march  into 
the  field  with  that  fortitude  which  a  consciousness  of  the  justice  of 
their  cause  inspires;  they  do  not  jeopard  their  lives  for  a  master  who 
considers  them  only  as  the  instruments  of  his  ambition,  and  whom  they 
regard  only  as  the  daily  dispenser  of  the  scanty  pittance  of  bread  and 
water.  No,  they  fight  for  their  houses,  their  lands,  for  their  wives, 
their  children,  for  all  who  claim  the  tenderest  names,  and  are  held 
dearest  in  their  hearts,  they  fight  pro  aris  et  focis,  for  their  liberty,  and 
for  themselves,  and  for  their  God.  And  let  it  not  offend,  if  I  say, 
that  no  militia  ever  appeared  in  more  flourishing  condition,  than  that 
of  this  province  now  doth;  and,  pardon  me  if  I  say — of  this  town  in 
particular — I  mean  not  to  boast;  I  would  not  excite  envy,  but  manly 
emulation.  We  have  all  one  common  cause;  let  it  therefore  be  our 
only  contest,  who  shall  most  contribute  to  the  security  of  the  liberties 
of  America.  And  may  the  same  kind  Providence  which  has  watched 
over  this  country  from  her  infant  state,  still  enable  us  to  defeat  our 
enemies.  I  cannot  here  forbear  noticing  the  signal  manner  in  which 
the  designs  of  those  who  wish  not  well  to  us  have  been  discovered. 
The  dark  deeds  of  a  treacherous  cabal  have  been  brought  to  public 
view.  You  now  know  the  serpents  who,  while  cherished  in  your 
bosoms,  were  darting  their  envenomed  stings  into  the  vitals  of  the 
constitution.  But  the  representatives  of  the  people  have  fixed  a  mark 
on  these  ungrateful  monsters,  which,  though  it  may  not  make  them 
so  secure  as  Cain  of  old,  yet  renders  them  at  least  as  infamous.  In 
deed  it  would  be  affrontive  to  the  tutelar  deity  of  this  country  even  to 
despair  of  saving  it  from  all  the  snares  which  human  policy  can  lay. 

True  it  is,  that  the  British  ministry  have  annexed  a  salary  to  the 
office  of  the  governor  of  this  province,  to  be  paid  out  of  a  revenue, 
raised  in  America  without  our  consent.  They  have  attempted  to 
render  our  courts  of  justice  the  instruments  of  extending  the  autho 
rity  of  acts  of  the  British  Parliament  over  this  colony,  by  making  the 
judges  dependent  on  the  British  administration  for  their  support. 
But  this  people  will  never  be  enslaved  with  their  eyes  open.  The 
moment  they  knew  that  the  governor  was  not  such  a  governor  as  the 
charter  of  the  province  points  out,  he  lost  his  power  of  hurting  them. 
They  were  alarmed;  they  suspected  him,  have  guarded  against  him, 
and  he  has  found  that  a  wise  and  a  brave  people,  when  they  know 
their  danger,  are  fruitful  in  expedients  to  escape  it. 

The  courts  of  judicature  also  so  far  lost  their  dignity,  by  being  sup 
posed  to  be  under  an  undue  influence,  that  our  representatives 
thought  it  absolutely  necessary  to  resolve  that  they  were  bound  to 
declare  that  they  would  not  receive  any  other  salary  besides"  that 
which  the  general  court  should  grant  them;  and,  if  they  did  not  make 


92  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

this  declaration,  that  it  would  be  the  duty  of  the  house  to  impeach 
them. 

Great  expectations  were  also  formed  from  the  artful  scheme  of 
allowing  the  East  India  company  to  export  tea  to  America,  upon  their 
own  account.  This,  certainly,  had  it  succeeded,  would  have  effected 
the  purpose  of  the  contrivers  and  gratified  the  most  sanguine  wishes 
of  our  adversaries.  We  soon  should  have  found  our  trade  in  the 
hands  of  foreigners,  and  taxes  imposed  on  everything  which  we  con 
sumed;  nor  would  it  have  been  strange,  if,  in  a  few  years,  a  company 
in  London  should  have  purchased  an  exclusive  right  of  trading  to 
America.  But  their  plot  was  soon  discovered.  The  people  soon 
were  aware  of  the  poison  which,  with  so  much  craft  and  subtilty,  had 
been  concealed:  loss  and  disgrace  ensued:  and,  perhaps,  this  long. 
concerted  master-piece  of  policy  may  issue  in  the  total  disuse  of  tea 
in  this  country,  which  will  eventually  be  the  saving  of  the  lives  and 
the  estates  of  thousands — yet  while  we  rejoice  that  the  adversary  has 
not  hitherto  prevailed  against  us,  let  us  by  no  means  put  off  the 
harness.  Restless  malice,  and  disappointed  ambition,  will  still  sug 
gest  new  measures  to  our  inveterate  enemies.  Therefore  let  us  also 
be  ready  to  take  the  field  whenever  danger  calls;  let  us  be  united  and 
strengthen  the  hands  of  each  other  by  promoting  a  general  union 
among  us.  Much  has  been  done  by  the  committees  of  correspond 
ence,  for  this  and  the  other  towns  of  this  province,  towards  uniting 
the  inhabitants;  let  them  still  go  on  and  prosper.  Much  has  been 
done,  by  the  committees  of  correspondence,  for  the  houses  of  assem 
bly,  in  this  and  our  sister  colonies,  for  uniting  the  inhabitants  of  the 
whole  continent,  for  the  security  of  their  common  interest.  May  suc 
cess  ever  attend  their  generous  endeavors.  But  permit  me  here  to 
suggest  a  general  congress  of  deputies,  from  the  several  houses  of 
assembly  on  the  continent,  as  the  most  effectual  method  of  establish 
ing  such  an  union  as  the  present  posture  of  our  affairs  require.  At 
such  a  congress  a  firm  foundation  may  be  laid  for  the  security  of  our 
rights  and  liberties,  a  system  may  be  formed  for  our  common  safety, 
by  a  strict  adherence  to  which  we  shall  be  able  to  frustrate  any  at 
tempts  to  overthrow  our  constitution,  restore  peace  and  harmony  to 
America,  and  secure  honor  and  wealth  to  Great  Britain,  even  against 
the  inclinations  of  her  ministers,  whose  duty  it  is  to  study  her  wel 
fare;  and  we  shall  also  free  ourselves  from  those  unmannerly  pillagers 
who  impudently  tell  us  that  they  are  licensed  by  an  act  of  the  British 
Parliament  to  thrust  their  dirty  hands  into  the  pockets  of  every 
American.  But,  I  trust,  the  happy  time  will  come,  when,  with  the 
besom  of  destruction,  those  noxious  vermin  will  be  swept  forever  from 
the  streets  of  Boston. 

Surely  you  never  will  tamely  suffer  this  country  to  be  a  den  of 
thieves.  Remember,  my  friends,  from  whom  you  sprang.  Let  not 
a  meanness  of  spirit,  unknown  to  those  whom  you  boast  of  as  your 


JOHN  HANCOCK.  93 

fathers,  excite  a  thought  to  the  dishonor  of  your  mothers.  I  conjure 
you  by  all  that  is  dear,  by  all  that  is  honorable,  by  all  that  is  sacred, 
not  only  that  ye  pray,  but  that  you  act;  that,  if  necessary,  ye  fight, 
and  even  die,  for  the  prosperity  of  our  Jerusalem.  Break  in  sunder, 
with  noble  disdain,  the  bonds  with  which  the  Philistines  have  bound 
you.  Suffer  not  yourselves  to  be  betrayed  by  the  soft  arts  of  luxury 
and  effeminacy  into  the  pit  digged  for  your  destruction.  Despise  the 
glare  of  wealth.  That  people  who  pay  greater  respect  to  a  wealthy 
villain  than  to  an  honest  upright  man  in  poverty,  almost  deserve  to 
be  enslaved;  they  plainly  show  that  wealth,  however  it  may  be  ac 
quired,  is,  in  their  esteem,  to  be  preferred  to  virtue. 

But  I  thank  God  that  America  abounds  in  men  who  are  superior  to 
all  temptation,  whom  nothing  can  divert  from  a  steady  pursuit  of  the 
interest  of  their  country,  who  are  at  once  its  ornament  and  safe-guard. 
And,  sure  I  am,  I  should  not  incur  your  displeasure  if  I  paid  a  respect 
so  justly  due  to  their  much  honored  characters  in  this  place;  but, 
when  I  name  an  Adams,  such  a  numerous  host  of  fellow  patriots  rush 
upon  my  mind  that  I  fear  it  would  take  up  too  much  of  your  time 
should  I  attempt  to  call  over  the  illustrious  roll:  but  your  grateful 
hearts  will  point  you  to  the  men;  and  their  revered  names,  in  all 
succeeding  times,  shall  grace  the  annals  of  America.  From  them,  let 
us,  my  friends,  take  example;  from  them,  let  us  catch  the  divine  en 
thusiasm,  and  feel,  each  for  himself,  the  God-like  pleasure  of  diffus 
ing  happiness  on  all  around  us;  of  delivering  the  oppressed  from  the 
iron  grasp  of  tyranny;  of  changing  the  hoarse  complaints  and  bitter 
moans  of  wretched  slaves  into  those  cheerful  songs,  which  freedom  and 
contentment  must  inspire.  There  is  a  heart-felt  satisfaction  in  reflect 
ing  on  our  exertions  for  the  public  weal,  which  all  the  sufferings  an 
enraged  tyrant  can  inflict,  will  never  take  away;  which  the  ingratitude 
and  reproaches  of  those  whom  we  have  saved  from  ruin  cannot  rob 
us  of.  The  virtuous  asserter  of  the  rights  of  mankind  merits  a  reward 
which  even  a  want  of  success  in  his  endeavors  to  save  his  country, 
the  heaviest  misfortune  which  can  befal  a  genuine  patriot,  cannot  en 
tirely  prevent  him  from  receiving. 

I  have  the  most  animating  confidence  that  the  present  noble  struggle 
for  liberty  will  terminate  gloriously  for  America.  And  let  us  play  the 
man  for  our  God,  and  for  the  cities  of  our  God;  while  we  are  using 
the  means  in  our  power,  let  us  humbly  commit  our  righteous  cause 
to  the  great  Lord  of  the  universe,  who  loveth  righteousness  and 
hateth  iniquity.  And,  having  secured  the  approbation  of  our  hearts 
by  a  faithful  and  unwearied  discharge  of  our  duty  to  our  country,  let 
us  joyfully  leave  our  concerns  in  the  hands  of  Him  who  raiseth  up  and 
putteth  down  the  empires  and  kingdoms  of  the  world  as  He  pleases; 
and,  with  cheerful  submission  to  His  sovereign  will,  devoutly  say: 

''Although  the  fig  tree  shall  not  blossom,  neither  shall  fruit  be  in 
the  vines;  the  labor  of  the  olive  shall  fail,  and  the  field  shall  yield  no 


94  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

meat;  the  flock  shall  be  cut  off  from  the  fold,  and  there  shall  be  no 
herd  in  the  stalls;  yet  we  will  rejoice  in  the  Lord,  we  will  joy  in  the 
God  of  our  salvation." 


VINDICATION  OF  THE  COLONIES  AND  OFFER  FROM 
CONGRESS  TO  PARLIAMENT. 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN. 

Philadelphia^  June   15,   1775. 

Forasmuch  as  the  enemies  of  America  in  the  Parliament  of  Great 
Britain,  to  render  us  odious  to  the  nation,  and  give  an  ill  impression 
of  us  in  the  minds  of  other  European  powers,  having  represented  us 
as  unjust  and  ungrateful  in  the  highest  degree;  asserting,  on  every 
occasion,  that  the  colonies  were  settled  at  the  expense  of  Britain;  that 
they  were,  at  the  expense  of  the  same,  protected  in  their  infancy;  that 
they  now  ungratefully  and  unjustly  refuse  to  contribute  to  their  own 
protection,  and  the  common  defence  of  the  nation;  that  they  intend 
an  abolition  of  the  Navigation  Acts;  and  that  they  are  fraudulent  in 
their  commercial  dealings,  and  propose  to  cheat  their  creditors  in 
Britain,  by  avoiding  the  payment  of  their  just  debts; 

And,  as  by  frequent  repetitions  these  groundless  assertions  and 
malicious  calumnies  may,  if  not  contradicted  and  refuted,  obtain  fur 
ther  credit,  and  be  injurious  throughout  Europe  to  the  reputation  and 
interest  of  the  confederate  colonies,  it  seems  proper  and  necessary  to 
examine  them  in  our  own  just  vindication. 

With  regard  to  the  first,  that  the  colonies  were  settled  at  the  expense 
of  Britain,  it  is  a  known  fact,  that  none  of  the  twelve  united  colonies 
were  settled,  or  even  discovered,  at  the  expense  of  England.  Henry 
the  Seventh,  indeed,  granted  a  commission  to  Sebastian  Cabot,  a 
Venetian,  and  his  sons,  to  sail  into  western  seas  for  the  discovery  of 
new  countries;  but  it  was  to  be  "  suis  eorum  propriis  sumptibus  et  ex- 
pensis"  at  their  own  cost  and  charges.  They  discovered,  but  soon 
slighted  and  neglected  these  northern  territories;  which  were,  after 
more  than  a  hundred  years'  dereliction,  purchased  of  the  natives,  and 
settled  at  the  charge  and  by  the  labor  of  private  men  and  bodies  of 
men,  our  ancestors,  who  came  over  hither  for  that  purpose.  But  our 
adversaries  have  never  been  able  to  produce  any  record,  that  ever  the 
Parliament  or  government  of  England  was  at  the  smallest  expense  on 
these  accounts;  on  the  contrary,  there  exists  on  the  journals  of  Par 
liament  a  solemn  declaration  in  1642  (only  twenty-two  years  after  the 
first  settlement  of  the  Massachusetts,  when,  if  such  expense  had  ever 
been  incurred,  some  of  the  members  must  have  known  and  remem 
bered  it),  "That  these  colonies  had  been  planted  and  established 
without  any  expense  to  the  state.1' 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN.  95 

New  York  is  the  only  colony  in  the  founding  of  which  England  can 
pretend  to  have  been  at  any  expense;  and  that  was  only  the  charge  of 
a  small  armament  to  take  it  from  the  Dutch,  who  planted  it.  But  to 
retain  this  colony  at  the  peace,  another  at  that  time  fully  as  valuable, 
planted  by  private  countrymen  of  ours,  was  given  up  by  the  Crown 
to  the  Dutch  in  exchange,  viz.,  Surinam,  now  a  wealthy  sugar  colony 
in  Guiana,  and  which,  but  for  that  cession,  might  still  have  remained 
in  our  possession.  Of  late,  indeed,  Britain  has  been  at  some  expense 
in  planting  two  colonies,  Georgia  and  Nova  Scotia;  but  those  are  not 
in  our  confederacy;  and  the  expense,  she  has  been  at  in  their  name 
has  chiefly  been  in  grants  of  sums  unnecessarily  large,  by  way  of 
salaries  to  officers  sent  from  England,  and  in  jobs  to  friends,  whereby 
dependants  might  be  provided  for;  those  excessive  grants  not  being 
requisite  to  the  welfare  and  good  government  of  the  colonies,  which 
good  government  (as  experience  in  many  instances  of  other  colonies 
has  taught  us)  may  be  much  more  frugally,  and  full  as  effectually, 
provided  for  and  supported. 

With  regard  to  the  second  assertion,  that  these  colonies  were  protected 
in  their  infant  state  by  England,  it  is  a  notorious  fact,  that,  in  none  of 
the  many  wars  with  the  Indian  natives,  sustained  by  our  infant  settle 
ments  for  a  century  after  our  arrival,  were  ever  any  troops  or  forces 
of  any  kind  sent  from  England  to  assist  us;  nor  were  any  forts  built 
at  her  expense,  to  secure  our  seaports  from  foreign  invaders;  nor  any 
ships  of  war  sent  to  protect  our  trade  till  many  years  after  our  first 
settlement,  when  our  commerce  become  an  object  of  revenue,  or  of 
advantage  to  British  merchants;  and  then  it  was  thought  necessary  to 
have  a  frigate  in  some  of  our  ports,  during  peace,  to  give  weight  to 
the  authority  of  custom-house  officers,  who  were  to  restrain  that  com 
merce  for  the  benefit  of  England.  Our  own  arms,  with  our  poverty, 
and  the  care  of  a  kind  Providence,  were  all  this  time  our  only  protec 
tion;  while  we  were  neglected  by  the  English  government;  which 
either  thought  us  not  worth  its  care,  or,  having  no  good  will  to  some 
of  us,  on  account  of  our  different  sentiments  in  religion  and  politics, 
was  indifferent  what  became  of  us. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  colonies  have  not  been  wanting  to  do  what 
they  could  in  every  war  for  annoying  the  enemies  of  Britain.  They 
formerly  assisted  her  in  the  conquest  of  Nova  Scotia.  In  the  war  be 
fore  last  they  took  Louisburg,  and  put  it  into  her  hands.  She  made 
her  peace  with  that  strong  fortress,  by  restoring  it  to  France,  greatly 
to  their  detriment.  In  the  last  war,  it  is  true,  Britain  sent  a  fleet  and 
army,  who  acted  with  an  equal  army  of  ours,  in  the  reduction  of 
Canada;  and  perhaps  thereby  did  more  for  us,  than  we  in  our  pre 
ceding  wars  had  done  for  her.  Let  it  be  remembered,  however,  that 
she  rejected  the  plan  we  formed  in  the  Congress  at  Albany,  in  1754, 
for  out  own  defence,  by  a  union  of  the  colonies;  a  union  she  was  jealous 
of,  and  therefore  chose  to  send  her  own  forces;  otherwise  her  aid  to 


96  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

protect  us  was  not  wanted.  And  from  our  first  settlement  to  that 
time,  her  military  operations  in  our  favor  were  small,  compared  with 
the  advantages  she  drew  from  her  exclusive  commerce  with  us.  We 
are,  however,  willing  to  give  full  weight  to  this  obligation;  and,  as 
we  are  daily  growing  stronger,  and  our  assistance  to  her  becomes  of 
more  importance,  we  should  with  pleasure  embrace  the  first  oppor 
tunity  of  showing  our  gratitude  by  returning  the  favor  in  kind. 

But,  when  Britain  values  herself  as  affording  us  protection,  we  de 
sire  it  may  be  considered,  that  we  have  followed  her  in  all  her  wars, 
and  joined  with  her  at  our  own  expense  against  all  she  thought  fit  to 
quarrel  with.  This  she  has  required  of  us;  and  would  never  permit  us 
to  keep  peace  with  any  power  she  declared  her  enemy;  though  by 
separate  treaties  we  might  have  done  it.  Under  such  circumstances, 
when  at  her  instance  we  made  nations  our  enemies,  we  submit  it  to  the 
common  sense  of  mankind,  whether  her  protection  of  us  in  those  wars 
was  not  our  just  due,  and  to  be  claimed  of  right,  instead  of  being  re 
ceived  as  a  favor?  And  whether,  when  all  the  parts  exert  themselves 
to  do  the  utmost  in  their  common  defence,  and  in  annoying  the  common 
enemy,  it  is  not  as  well  the  parts  that  protect  the  whole,  as  the  whole 
that  protects  the  parts?  The  protection  then  has  been  proportion- 
ably  mutual.  And,  whenever  the  time  shall  come,  that  our  abilities 
may  as  far  exceed  hers  as  hers  have  exceeded  ours,  we  hope  we  shall 
be  reasonable  enough  to  rest  satisfied  with  her  proportionable  exer 
tions,  and  not  think  we  do  too  much  for  a  part  of  the  empire,  when 
that  part  does  as  much  as  it  can  for  the  whole. 

To  charge  against  us,  that  we  refuse  to  contribute  to  our  own  protection, 
appears  from  the  above  to  be  groundless;  but  we  farther  declare  it  to 
be  absolutely  false;  for  it  is  well  known,  that  we  ever  held  it  as  our 
duty  to  grant  aids  to  the  Crown,  upon  requisition,  towards  carrying 
on  its  wars;  which  duty  we  have  cheerfully  complied  with,  to  the 
utmost  of  our  abilities;  insomuch  that  prudent  and  grateful  acknowl 
edgments  thereof  by  King  and  Parliament,  appear  on  the  records. 
But,  as  Britain  has  enjoyed  a  most  gainful  monopoly  of  our  commerce; 
the  same,  with  our  maintaining  the  dignity  of  the  King's  representa 
tive  in  each  colony,  and  all  our  own  separate  establishments  of  govern 
ment,  civil  and  military;  has  ever  hitherto  been  deemed  an  equivalent 
for  such  aids  as  might  otherwise  be  expected  from  us  in  time  of  peace. ' 
And  we  hereby  declare,  that  on  a  reconciliation  with  Britain,  we  shall 
not  only  continue  to  grant  aids  in  time  of  war,  as  aforesaid;  but, 
whenever  she  shall  think  fit  to  abolish  her  monopoly,  and  give  us  the 
same  privileges  of  trade  as  Scotland  received  at  the  union,  and  allow 
us  a  free  commerce  with  the  rest  of  the  word;  we  shall  willingly  agree 
(and  we  doubt  not  it  will  be  ratified  by  our  constituents)  to  give  and 
pay  into  the  sinking  fund  [one  hundred  thousand  pounds]  sterling  per 
annum  for  the  term  of  one  hundred  years,  which  duly,  faithfully,  and 
inviolably  applied  to  that  purpose,  is  demonstrably  more  than  suffi- 


JOHN    WILKES.  97 

cient  to  extinguish  all  her  present  national  debt;  since  it  will  in  that 
time  amount,  at  legal  British  interest,  to  more  than  [two  hundred 
and  thirty  million  pounds.] 

But  if  Britain  does  not  think  fit  to  accept  this  proposition,  we,  in 
order  to  remove  her  groundless  jealousies,  that  we  aim  at  independ 
ence  and  an  abolition  of  the  Navigation  Act  (which  hath  in  truth 
never  been  our  intention),  and  to  avoid  all  future  disputes  about  the 
right  of  making  that  and  other  acts  for  regulating  our  commerce,  do 
hereby  declare  ourselves  ready  and  willing  to  enter  into  a  covenant 
with  Britain,  that  she  shall  fully  possess,  enjoy,  and  exercise  the  right, 
for  an  hundred  years  to  come;  the  same  being  bona  fide  used  for  the 
common  benefit;  and,  in  case  of  such  agreement,  that  every  Assembly 
be  advised  by  us  to  confirm  it  solemnly  by  laws  of  their  own,  which, 
once  made,  cannot  be  repealed  without  the  assent  of  the  Crown. 

The  last  charge,  that  we  are  dishonest  traders,  and  aim  at  defrauding 
our  creditors  in  Britain,  is  sufficiently  and  authentically  refuted  by  the 
solemn  declarations  of  the  British  merchants  to  Parliament  (both  at 
the  time  of  the  Stamp  Act  and  in  the  last  session),  who  bore  ample 
testimony  to  the  general  good  faith  and  fair  dealing  of  the  Americans, 
and  declared  their  confidence  in  our  integrity;  for  which  we  refer  to 
their  petitions  on  the  journals  of  the  House  of  Commons.  And  we 
presume  we  may  safely  call  on  the  body  of  the  British  tradesmen,  who 
have  had  experience  of  both,  to  say,  whether  they  have  not  received 
much  more  punctual  payment  from  us,  than  they  generally  have  from 
the  members  of  their  own  two  Houses  of  Parliament. 

On  the  whole  of  the  above  it  appears,  that  the  charge  of  ingratitude 
towards  the  mother  country,  brought  with  so  much  confidence  against 
the  colonies,  is  totally  without  foundation;  and  that  there  is  much  more 
reason  for  retorting  that  charge  on  Britain,  who,  not  only  never  contri 
butes  any  aid,  nor  affords,  by  an  exclusive  commerce,  any  advantages  to 
Saxony,  her  mother  country;  but  no  longer  since  than  in  the  last  war, 
without  the  least  provocation,  subsidized  the  King  of  Prussia  while  he 
ravaged  that  mother  country,  and  carried  fire  and  sword  into  its  capital, 
the  fine  city  of  Dresden!  An  example  we  hope  no  provocation  will  in 
duce  us  to  imitate. 


SPEECH  FOR  AMERICAN  COLONIES. 

JOHN    WILKES. 
House  of  Commons,  February  6,    1775. 

I  am  indeed  surprised,  that,  in  a  business  of  so  much  moment  as 
this  before  the  House,  respecting  the  British  colonies  in  America,  a 
cause  which  comprehends  almost  every  question  relative  to  the  com 
mon  rights  of  mankind,  almost  every  question  of  policy  and  legislation, 


98  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

it  should  be  resolved  to  proceed  with  so  little  circumspection,  or  rather 
with  so  much  precipitation  and  heedless  imprudence.  With  what  tem 
erity  are  we  assured,  that  the  same  men  who  have  been  so  often  over 
whelmed  with  praises  for  their  attachment  to  this  country,  for  their 
forwardness  to  grant  it  the  necessary  succors,  for  the  valor  they  have 
signalized  in  its  defence,  have  all  at  once  so  degenerated  from  their 
ancient  manners,  as  to  merit  the  appellation  of  seditious,  ungrateful, 
impious  rebels  !  But  if  such  a  change  has  indeed  been  wrought  in  the 
minds  of  this  most  loyal  people,  it  must  at  least  be  admitted,  that  affec 
tions  so  extraordinary  could  only  have  been  produced  by  some  very 
powerful  cause.  But  who  is  ignorant,  who  needs  to  be  told  of  the  new 
madness  that  infatuates  our  ministers? — who  has  not  seen  the  tyran 
nical  counsels  they  have  pursued,  for  the  last  ten  years  ?  They  would 
now  have  us  carry  to  the  foot  of  the  throne,  a  resolution  stamped  with 
rashness  and  injustice,  fraught  with  blood,  and  a  horrible  futurity. 
But  before  this  be  allowed  them,  before  the  signal  of  civil  war  be 
given,  before  they  are  permitted  to  force  Englishmen  to  sheath  their 
swords  in  the  bowels  of  their  fellow-subjects,  I  hope  this  House  will 
consider  the  rights  of  humanity,  the  original  ground  and  cause  of  the 
present  dispute.  Have  we  justice  on  our  side?  No:  assuredly  no. 
He  must  be  altogether  a  stranger  to  the  British  constitution,  who  does 
not  know  that  contributions  are  voluntary  gifts  of  the  people;  and 
singularly  blind,  not  to  perceive  that  the  words  "liberty  and  pro 
perty,"  so  grateful  to  English  ears,  are  nothing  better  than  mockery 
and  insult  to  the  Americans,  if  their  property  can  be  taken  without 
their  consent.  And  what  motive  can  there  exist  for  this  new  rigor,  for 
these  extraordinary  measures  ?  Have  not  the  Americans  always  de 
monstrated  the  utmost  zeal  and  liberality,  whenever  their  succors  have 
been  required  by  the  mother  country  ? 

In  the  two  last  wars,  they  gave  you  more  than  you  asked  for,  and 
more  than  their  facilities  warranted:  they  were  not  only  liberal  towards 
you,  but  prodigal  of  their  substance.  They  fought  gallantly  and  vic 
toriously  by  your  side,  with  equal  valor,  against  our  and  their  enemy, 
the  common  enemy  of  the  liberties  of  Europe  and  America,  the  ambi 
tious  and  faithless  French,  whom  now  we  fear  and  flatter.  And  even 
now,  at  a  moment  when  you  are  planning  their  destruction,  when  you 
are  branding  them  with  the  odious  appellation  of  rebels,  what  is  their 
language,  what  their  protestations?  Read,  in  the  name  of  Heaven, 
the  late  petition  of  the  Congress  to  the  king;  and  you  will  find,  "they 
are  ready  and  willing,  as  they  ever  have  been,  to  demonstrate  their 
loyalty,  by  exerting  their  most  strenuous  efforts  in  granting  supplies, 
and  raising  forces,  when  constitutionally  required."  And  yet  we  hear 
it  vociferated,  by  some  inconsiderate  individuals,  that  the  Americans 
wish  to  abolish  the  navigation 'act:  that  they  intend  to  throw  off  the 
supremacy  of  Great  Britain.  But  would  to  God,  these  assertions  were 
not  rather  a  provocation  than  the  truth  !  They  ask  nothing,  for  such 


JOHN    WILKES.  99 

are  the  words  of  their  petition,  but  for  peare,  liberty,  and  safety.  They 
wish  not  a  diminution  of  the  royal  prerogative;  they  solicit  not  any 
new  right.  They  are  ready,  on  the  contrary,  to  defend  this  preroga 
tive,  to  maintain  the  royal  authority,  and  to  draw  closer  the  bonds  of 
their  connection  with  Great  Britain.  But  our  ministers,  perhaps  to 
punish  others  for  their  own  faults,  are  sedulously  endeavoring,  not 
only  to  relax  these  powerful  ties,  but  to  dissolve  and  sever  them  for 
ever.  Their  address  represents  the  province  of  Massachusetts  as  in  a 
state  of  actual  rebellion.  The  other  provinces  are  held  out  to  our  in 
dignation,  as  aiding  and  abetting.  Many  arguments  have  been  em 
ployed,  by  some  learned  gentlemen  among  us,  to  comprehend  them 
all  in  the  same  offence,  and  to  involve  them  in  the  same  proscription. 

Whether  their  present  state  is  that  of  rebellion,  or  of  a  fit  and  just 
resistance  to  unlawful  acts  of  power,  to  our  attempts  to  rob  them  of 
their  property  and  liberties,  as  they  imagine,  I  shall  not  declare.  But 
I  well  know  what  will  follow,  nor,  however  strange  and  harsh  it  may 
appear  to  some,  shall  I  hesitate  to  announce  it,  that  I  may  not  be  ac 
cused  hereafter,  of  having  failed  in  duty  to  my  country,  on  so  grave 
an  occasion,  and  at  the  approach  of  such  direful  calamities.  Know, 
then,  a  successful  resistance  is  a  revolution,  not  a  rebellion:  Rebellion, 
indeed,  appears  on  the  back  of  a  flying  enemy,  but  revolution  flames 
on  the  breastplate  of  the  victorious  warrior.  Who  can  tell,  whether, 
in  consequence  of  this  day's  violent  and  mad  address  to  his  Majesty, 
the  scabbard  may  not  be  thrown  away  by  them  as  well  as  by  Us;  and 
whether,  in  a  few  years,  the  independent  Americans  may  not  celebrate 
the  glorious  era  of  the  revolution  of  1775,  as  we  do  that  of  1668  ?  The 
generous  effort  of  our  forefathers  for  freedom,  Heaven  crowned  with 
success,  or  their  noble  blood  had  dyed  our  scaffolds,  like  that  of 
Scottish  traitors  and  rebels;  and  the  period  of  our  history  which 
does  us  the  most  honor,  would  have  been  deemed  a  rebellion  against 
the  lawful  authority  of  the  prince,  not  a  resistance  authorized  by  all 
the  laws  of  God  and  man,  not  the  expulsion  of  a  detested  tyrant. 

But  suppose  the  Americans  to  combat  against  us  with  more  unhappy 
auspices  than  we  combated  James,  would  not  victory  itself  prove  per 
nicious  and  deplorable  ?  Would  it  not  be  fatal  to  British  as  well  as 
American  liberty?  Those  armies  which  should  subjugate  the  colo 
nists,  would  subjugate  also  their  parent  state.  Marius,  Sylla,  Caesar, 
Augustus,  Tiberius,  did  they  not  oppress  Roman  liberty  with  the  same 
troops  that  were  levied  to  maintain  Roman  supremacy  over  subject 
provinces?  But  the  impulse  once  given,  its  effects  extended  much 
further  than  its  authors  expected;  for  the  same  soldiery  that  destroyed 
the  Roman  republic,  subverted  and  utterly  demolished  the  imperial 
power  itself.  In  less  than  fifty  years  after  the  death  of  Augustus,  the 
armies  destined  to  hold  the  provinces  in  subjection,  proclaimed  three 
emperors  at  once;  disposed  of  the  empire  according  to  their  caprice,  and 
raised  to  the  throne  of  the  Caesars  the  object  of  their  momentary  favor. 


ioo  A  M  ERIC  A  N  PA  TRIO  TY.S'J/. 

I  can  no  more  comprehend  the  policy,  than  acknowledge  the  justice 
of  your  deliberations. — Where  is  your  force,  what  are  your  armies, 
how  are  they  to  be  recruited,  and  how  supported  ?  The  single  pro 
vince  of  Massachusetts  has,  at  this  moment,  thirty  thousand  men, 
well  trained  and  disciplined,  and  can  bring,  in  case  of  emergency, 
ninety  thousand  into  the  field;  and,  doubt  not,  they  will  do  it,  when 
all  that  is  dear  is  at  stake,  when  forced  to  defend  their  liberty,  and 
property  against  their  cruel  oppressors.  The  right  honorable  gentle 
man  with  the  blue  riband  assures  us  that  ten  thousand  of  our  troops 
and  four  Irish  regiments,  will  make  their  brains  turn  in  the  head  a 
little,  and  strike  them  aghast  with  terror?  But  where  does  the  author 
of  this  exquisite  scheme  propose  to  send  his  arm)'  ?  Boston,  perhaps, 
you  may  lay  in  ashes,  or  it  may  be  made  a  strong  garrison;  but  the 
province  will  be  lost  to  you.  You  will  hold  Boston  as  you  hold  Gib 
raltar,  in  the  midst  of  a  country  which  will  not  be  yours;  the  whole 
American  continent  will  remain  in  the  power  of  your  enemies.  The 
ancient  story  of  the  philosopher  Calanus  and  the  Indian  hide,  will  be 
verified;  where  you  tread,  it  will  be  kept  down;  but  it  will  rise  the 
more  in  all  other  parts.  Where  your  fleets  and  armies  are  stationed, 
the  possession  will  be  secured  while  they  continue;  but  all  the  rest 
will  be  lost.  In  the  great  scale  of  empire,  you  will  decline  I  fear, 
from  the  decision  of  this  day;  and  the  Americans  will  rise  to  inde 
pendence,  to  power,  to  all  the  greatness  of  the  most  renowned  states; 
for  they  build  on  the  solid  basis  of  general  public  liberty. 

I  dread  the  effects  of  the  present  resolution;  I  shudder  at  our  injus 
tice  and  cruelty;  I  tremble  for  the  consequences  of  our  imprudence. 
You  will  urge  the  Americans  to  desperation.  They  will  certainly  de 
fend  their  property  and  liberties,  with  the  spirit  of  freemen,  with  the 
spirit  our  ancestors  did,  and  I  hope  we  should  exert  on  a  like  occasion. 
They  will  sooner  declare  themselves  independent,  and  risk  every  conse 
quence  of  such  a  contest,  than  submit  to  the  galling  yoke  which  ad 
ministration  is  preparing  for  them.  Recollect  Philip  II.  king  of 
Spain:  remember  the  Seven  Provinces,  and  the  duke  of  Alva.  It  was 
deliberated,  in  the  council  of  the  monarch,  what  measures  should  be 
adopted  respecting  the  Low  Countries;  some  were  disposed  for  clem 
ency,  others  advised  rigor;  the  second  prevailed.  The  duke  of  Alva 
was  victorious,  it  is  true,  wherever  he  appeared;  but  his  cruelties 
sowed  the  teeth  of  the  serpent.  The  beggars  of  the  Briel,  as  they 
were  called  by  the  Spaniards,  who  despised  them  as  you  now  despise 
the  Americans,  were  those  however,  who  first  shook  the  power  of 
Spain  to  the  centre.  And,  comparing  the  probabilities  of  success  in 
the  contest  of  that  day,  with  the  chances  in  that  of  the  present,  are 
they  so  favorable  to  England  as  they  were  then  to  Spain  ?  This  none 
will  pretend.  You  all  know,  however,  the  issue  of  that  sanguinary  con 
flict — how  that  powerful  empire  was  rent  asunder,  and  severed  forever 
into  many  parts.  Profit,  then,  by  the  experience  of  the  past,  if  you 


WILLIAM  PITT— EARL   OF  CHATHAM  101 

would  axroid  a  similar  fate.  But  you  would  declare  the  Americans 
rebels;  and  to  your  injustice  and  oppression,  you  add  the  most  oppro 
brious  language,  and  the  most  insulting  scoffs.  If  you  persist  in  your 
resolution,  all  hope  of  a  reconciliation  is  extinct.  The  Americans  will 
triumph — the  whole  continent  of  North  America  will  be  dismembered 
from  Great  Britain,  and  the  wide  arch  of  the  raised  empire  fall.  But 
I  hope  the  just  vengeance  of  the  people  will  overtake  the  authors  of 
these  pernicious  counsels,  and  the  loss  of  the  first  province  of  the 
empire  be  speedily  followed  by  the  loss  of  the  heads  of  those  ministers 
who  first  invented  them. 


SPEECH  ON  A  MOTIONT    FOR    REMOVING  TROOPS    FROM 
BOSTON. 

WILLIAM    PITT— EARL    OF  CHATHAM. 

House  of  Lords,  December  20,  1775. 

MY  LORDS — After  m  re  than  six  weeks  posession  of  the  papers  now 
before  you,  on  a  subject  so  momentous,  at  a  time  when  the  fate  of  this 
nation  hangs  on  every  hour,  the  ministry  have  at  length  condescended 
to  submit,  to  the  consideration  of  the  House,  intelligence  from  America, 
with  which  your  lordships  and  the  public  have  been  long  and  fully 
acquainted. 

The  measures  of  last  year,  my  lords,  which  have  produced  the 
present  alarming  state  of  America,  were  founded  upon  misrepresenta 
tion — they  were  violent,  precipitate  and  vindictive.  The  nation  was 
told,  that  it  was  only  a  faction  in  Boston,  which  opposed  all  lawful 
government ;  that  an  unwarrantable  injury  had  been  done  to  private 
property,  for  which  the  justice  of  Parliament  was  called  upon,  to  order 
reparation; — that  the  least  appearance  of  firmness  would  awe  the 
Americans  into  submission,  and  upon  only  passing  the  Rubicon  we 
should  be  fine  clade  victor. 

That  the  people  might  choose  their  representatives,  under  the  im 
pression  of  those  misrepresentations,  the  Parliament  was  precipitately 
dissolved.  Thus  the  nation  was  to  be  rendered  instrumental  in  execu 
ting  the  vengeance  of  administration  on  that  injured,  unhappy,  traduced 
people. 

But  now,  my  lords,  we  find,  that  instead  of  suppressing  the  opposi 
tion  of  the  faction  at  Boston,  these  measures  have  spread  it  over  the 
whole  continent.  They  have  united  that  whole  people,  by  the  most 
indissoluble  of  all  bands — intolerable  wrongs.  The  just  retribution  is 
an  indiscriminate,  unmerciful  proscription  of  the  innocent  with  the 
guilty,  unheard  and  untried.  The  bloodless  victory,  is  an  impotent 
general,  with  his  dishonored  army,  trusting  solely  to  the  pick-axe  and 


102  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

the  spade,  for  security  against  the  just  indignation  of  an  injured  and 
insulted  people. 

My  lords  I  am  happy  that  a  relaxation  of  my  infirmities  permits  me 
to  seize  this  earliest  opportunity  of  offering  my  poor  advice  to  save 
this  unhappy  country,  at  this  moment  tottering  to  its  ruin.  But  as  I 
have  not  the  honor  of  access  to  his  Majesty,  I  will  endeavor  to  trans 
mit  to  him,  through  the  constitutional  channel  of  this  House,  my  ideas 
on  American  business,  to  rescue  him  from  the  misadvice  of  his  present 
ministers.  I  congratulate  your  lordships  that  that  business  is  at  last 
entered  upon,  by  the  noble  lords  (Lord  Dartmouth)  laying  the  papers 
before  you.  As  I  suppose  your  lordships  are  too  well  apprised  of  their 
cgntents,  I  hope  1  am  Hot  premature  in  submitting  to  you  my  present 
motion  (reacis  ih-r-.  motion).  I  wish  my  lords  not  to  lose  a  day  in  this 
urging  present  crisis.  A^.hour  now  lost  in  allaying  the  ferment  in 
America,  may  produce  years  of  calamity:  but,  for  my  own  part,  I  will 
?K>t  $&$&rt'io£  a  moment  the  conduct  of  this  mighty  business  from  the 
first  to  the  last,  unless  nailed  to  my  bed  by  the  extremity  of  sickness; 
I  will  give  it  unremitting  attention:  I  will  knock  at  the  door  of  this 
sleeping,  or  confounded  ministry,  and  will  rouse  them  to  a  sense  of 
their  important  danger.  When  I  state  the  importance  of  the  colonies 
to  this  country,  and  the  magnitude  of  danger  hanging  over  this  country 
from  the  present  plan  of  misadministration  practised  against  them,  I 
desire  not  to  be  understood  to  argue  for  a  reciprocity  of  indulgence 
between  England  and  America:  I  contend  not  for  indulgence,  but 
justice,  to  America;  and  I  shall  ever  contend  that  the  Americans  owe 
obedience  to  us,  in  a  limited  degree;  they  owe  obedience  to  our  ordi 
nances  of  trade  and  navigation;  but  let  the  line  be  skilfully  drawn 
between  the  objects  of  those  ordinances,  and  their  private,  internal 
property: — Let  the  sacredness  of  their  property  remain  inviolate;  let 
it  be  taxable  only  by  their  own  consent,  given  in  their  provincial 
assemblies,  else  it  will  cease  to  be  property.  As  to  the  metaphysical 
refinements  attempting  to  show  that  the  Americans  are  equally  free 
from  obedience  to  commercial  restraints,  as  from  taxation  for  revenue, 
as  being  unrepresented  here,  I  pronounce  them  futile,  frivolous  and 
groundless. — Property  is,  in  its  nature,  single  as  an  atom.  It  is  indi 
visible,  can  belong  to  one  only,  and  cannot  be  touched  but  by  his 
own  consent.  The  law  that  attempts  to  alter  this  disposal  of  it  anni 
hilates  it. 

When  I  urge  this  measure  for  recalling  the  troops  from  Boston,  I 
urge  it  on  this  pressing  principle — that  it  is  necessarily  preparatory  to 
the  restoration  of  your  prosperity.  It  will  then  appear  that  you  are 
disposed  to  treat  amicably  and  equitably,  and  to  consider,  revise  and 
repeal,  if  it  should  be  found  necessary,  as  I  affirm  it  will,  those  violent 
acts  and  declarations  which  have  disseminated  confusion  throughout 
your  empire.  Resistance  to  your  acts,  was  as  necessary  as  it  was 
just;  and  your  vain  declarations  of  the  omnipotence  of  Parliament, 


WILLIAM  PITT— EARL    OF  CHATHAM.  103 

and  your  imperious  doctrines  of  the  necessity  of  submission,  will  be 
found  equally  impotent  to  convince  or  enslave  your  fellow  subjects  in 
America,  who  feel  that  tyranny,  whether  ambitioned  by  an  individual 
part  of  the  legislature,  or  by  the  bodies  which  compose  it,  is  equally 
intolerable  to  British  principles. 

As  to  the  means  of  enforcing  this  thraldom,  they  are  found  to  be  as 
ridiculous  and  weak  in  practice,  as  they  were  unjust  in  principle:  In 
deed  I  cannot  but  feel,  with  the  most  anxious  sensibility,  for  the  situa 
tion  of  General  Gage  and  the  troops  under  his  command;  thinking 
him,  as  I  do,  a  man  of  humanity  and  understanding,  and  entertaining, 
as  I  ever  shall,  the  highest  respect,  the  warmest  love,  for  the  British 
troops.  Their  situation  is  truly  unworthy,  pent  up,  pining  in  inglori 
ous  inactivity.  They  are  an  army  of  impotence.  You  may  call  them 
an  army  of  safety  and  of  guard;  but  they  are  in  truth  an  army  of  im 
potence  and  contempt — and  to  render  the  folly  equal  to  the  disgrace, 
they  are  an  army  of  irritation.  I  do  not  mean  to  censure  the  inactivity 
of  the  troops.  It  is  prudent  and  necessary  inaction.  But  it  is  a  mis 
erable  condition,  where  disgrace  is  prudence;  and  where  it  is  necessary 
to  be  contemptible.  This  tamer.ess,  however  disgraceful,  ought  not 
to  be  blamed,  as  I  am  surprised  to  hear  is  done  by  these  ministers. 
The  first  drop  of  blood,  shed  in  a  civil  and  unnatural  war,  would  be 
an  immedicabile  vidnus.  It  would  entail  hatred  and  contention  be 
tween  the  two  people,  from  generation  to  generation.  Woe  be  to 
him  who  sheds  the  first,  the  unexpiable  drop  of  blood  in  an  impious 
war,  with  a  people  contending  in  the  great  cause  of  public  liberty.  I 
will  tell  you  plainly,  my  lords,  no  son  of  mine  nor  any  one  over  whom 
I  have  influence,  shall  ever  draw  his  sword  upon  his"  fellow  subjects. 

I  therefore  urge  and  conjure  your  lordships  immediately  to  adopt 
this  conciliatory  measure.  I  will  pledge  myself  for  its  immediately 
producing  conciliatory  effects,  from  its  being  well  timed:  But  if  you 
delay,  till  your  vain  hope  of  triumphantly  dictating  the  terms  shall  be 
accomplished — you  delay  forever.  And,  even  admitting  that  this 
hope,  which  in  truth  is  desperate,  should  be  accomplished,  what  will 
you  gain  by  a  victorious  imposition  of  amity?  You  will  be  untrusted 
and  unthanked.  Adopt  then  the  grace,  while  you  have  the  opportunity 
of  reconcilement,  or  at  least  prepare  the  way;  allay  the  ferment  pre 
vailing  in  America,  by  removing  the  obnoxious  hostile  corps.  Ob 
noxious  and  unserviceable;  for  their  merit  can  be  only  inaction. 
"  Non  dimicare  estvincere"  Their  victory  can  never  be  by  exertions. 
Their  force  would  be  most  disproportionately  exerted,  against  a  brave, 
generous,  and  united  people,  with  arms  in  their  hands  and  courage  in 
their  hearts;  three  millions  of  people,  the  genuine  descendants  of  q 
valiant  and  pious  ancestry,  driven  to  these  deserts  by  the  narrow 
maxims  of  a  superstitious  tyranny.  And  is  the  spirit  of  tyrannous 
persecution  never  to  be  appeased  ?  Are  the  brave  sons  of  those  brave 
forefathers  to  inherit  their  sufferings,  as  they  have  inherited  their 


104  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

virtues  ?  Are  they  to  sustain  the  inflictions  of  the  most  oppressive 
and  unexampled  severity,  beyond  the  accounts  of  history  or  the  de 
scription  of  poetry?  "  RhadaniantJms  hahet  dnrrissinia  regna,  casti- 
gatqite  auditque"  So  says  the  wisest  statesman  and  politician.  But 
the  Bostonians  have  been  condemned  unheard.  The  discriminating 
hand  of  vengeance  has  lumped  together  innocent  and  guilty;  with  all 
the  formalities  of  hostility,  has  blocked  up  the  town,  and  reduced  to 
beggary  and  famine  30,000  inhabitants.  But  his  Majesty  is  advised 
that  the  union  of  America  cannot  last. — Ministers  have  more  eyes 
than  I,  and  should  have  more  ears,  but  from  all  the  information  I 
have  been  able  to  procure,  I  can  pronounce  it  a  union  solid,  perma 
nent  and  effectual.  Ministers  may  satisfy  themselves  and  delude  the 
public  with  the  reports  of  what  they  call  commercial  bodies  in 
America.  They  are  not  commercial.  They  are  your  packers  and 
factors;  they  live  upon  nothing,  for  I  call  commission  nothing;  I 
mean  the  ministerial  authority  for  their  American  intelligence.  The 
runners  of  government,  who  are  paid  for  their  intelligence.  But 
these  are  not  the  men,  nor  this  the  influence  to  be  considered  in 
America,  when  we  estimate  the  firmness  of  their  union.  Even  to  ex 
tend  the  question,  and  to  take  in  the  really  mercantile  circle,  will  be 
totally  inadequate  to  the  consideration.  Trade  indeed  increases  the 
wealth  and  glory  of  a  country;  but  its  real  strength  and  stamina  are 
to  be  looked  for  among  the  cultivators  of  the  land.  In  their  simplicity 
of  life  is  founded  the  simplicity  of  virtue,  the  integrity  and  courage  of 
freedom.  Those  true  genuine  sons  of  the  earth  are  invincible:  and 
they  surround  and  hem  in  the  mercantile  bodies;  even  if  these  bodies, 
which  supposition  I  totally  disclaim,  could  be  supposed  disaffected  to 
the  cause  of  liberty.  Of  this  general  spirit  existing  in  the  American 
nation,  for  so  I  wish  to  distinguish  the  real  and  genuine  Americans 
from  the  pseudo  traders  I  have  described;  of  this  spirit  of  independ 
ence,  animating  the  nation  of  America,  I  have  the  most  authentic  in 
formation.  It  is  not  new  among  them;  it  is,  and  ever  has  been,  their 
established  principle,  their  confirmed  persuasion;  it  is  their  nature 
and  their  doctrine.  I  remember  some  years  ago  when  the  repeal  of 
the  stamp  act  was  in  agitation,  conversing  in  a  friendly  confidence 
with  a  person  of  undoubted  respect  and  authenticity  on  this  subject; 
and  he  assured  me  with  a  certainty  which  his  judgment  and  opportu 
nity  gave  him,  that  these  were  the  prevalent  and  steady  principles  of 
America:  That  you  might  destroy  their  towns,  and  cut  them  off  from 
the  superfluities,  perhaps  the  conveniences  of  life,  but  that  they  were 
prepared  to  despise  your  power,  and  would  not  lament  their  loss, 
whilst  they  hadf  what,  my  lords  ? — Their  woods  and  liberty.  The 
name  of  my  authority,  if  I  am  called  upon,  will  authenticate  the 
opinion  irrefragably. 

If  illegal  violences  have  been,  as  it  is  said,  committed  in  America, 
prepare  the  way,  open  a  door  of  possibility,  for  acknowledgment  and 


WILLIAM  PITT— EARL   OF  CHATHAM.  105 

satisfaction.  But  proceed  not  to  such  coercion,  such  proscription. 
'Cease  your  indiscriminate  inflictions;  amerce  not  thirty  thousands, 
oppress  not  three  millions,  for  the  faults  of  forty  or  fifty.  Such 
severity  of  injustice  must  forever  render  incurable  the  wounds  you 
have  given  your  colonies;  you  irritate  them  to  unappeasable  rancor. 
What  though  you  march  from  town  to  town,  and  from  province  to 
province  ? — Though  you  should  be  able  to  force  a  temporary  and  local 
submission,  which  I  only  suppose,  not  admit,  how  shall  you  be  able 
to  secure  the  obedience  of  the  country  you  leave  behind  you  in  your 
progress  ?  To  grasp  the  dominion  of  1800  miles  of  continent,  popu 
lous  in  valor,  liberty  and  resistance  ?  This  resistance  to  your  arbi 
trary  system  of  taxation  might  have  been  foreseen;  it  was  obvious 
from  the  nature  of  things  and  of  mankind;  and  above  all,  from  the 
whiggish  spirit  flourishing  in  that  country.  The  spirit  which  now  re 
sists  your  taxation  in  America,  is  the  same  which  formerly  opposed, 
and  with  success  opposed,  loans,  benevolences,  and  ship  money  in 
England — the  same  spirit  which  called  all  England  on  its  legs,  and  by 
the  bill  of  rights  vindicated  the  English  constitution — the  same  spirft 
which  established  the  great  fundamental  and  essential  maxim  of  your 
liberties,  that  no  subject  shall  be  taxed,  but  by  his  own  consent.  If 
your  lordships  will  turn  to  the  politics  of  those  times,  you  will  see  the 
attempts  of  the  lords  to  poison  this  inestimable  benefit  of  the  bill,  by 
an  insidious  proviso.  You  will  see  their  attempts  defeated,  in  their 
conference  with  the  commons,  by  the  decisive  arguments  of  the  as- 
certainers  and  maintainers  of  our  liberty;  you  will  see  the  thin,  in 
conclusive  and  fallacious  stuff  of  those  enemies  to  freedom,  contrasted 
with  the  sound  and  solid  reasoning  of  sergeant  Glanville  and  the  rest, 
those  great  and  learned  men  who  adorned  and  enlightened  this  coun 
try,  and  placed  her  security  on  the  summit  of  justice  and  freedom. 
And  whilst  1  am  on  my  legs,  and  thus  do  justice  to  the  memory  of 
those  great  men,  I  must  also  justify  the  merit  of  the  living  by  declar 
ing  my  firm  and  fixed  opinion,  that  such  a  man  exists  this  day  [looking 
towards  Lord  Cambden] ;  this  glorious  spirit  of  whiggism  animates  three 
millions  in  America,  who  prefer  poverty  with  liberty,  to  golden  chains 
and  sordid  affluence;  and  who  will  die  in  defence  of  their  rights,  as  men, 
as  freemen.  What  shall  oppose  this  spirit  ?  aided  by  the  congenial  flame 
glowing  in  the  breast  of  every  whig  in  England,  to  the  amount,  I 
hope,  of  at  least  double  the  American  numbers'  Ireland  they  have 
to  a  man.  In  that  country,  joined  as  it  is  with  the  cause  of  the  colo 
nies,  and  placed  at  their  head,  the  distinction  1  contend  for,  is  and 
must  be  observed. 

My  iords — This  country  superintends  and  controls  their  trade  and 
navigation1  but  they  tax  themselves.  And  this  distinction  between 
external  and  internal  control,  is  sacred  and  insurmountable;  it  is 
involved  in  the  abstract  nature  of  things.  Property  is  private,  indi 
vidual,  absolute  Trade  is  an  extended  and  complicated  considera- 


106  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

tion;  it  reaches  as  far  as  ships  can  sail,  or  winds  can  blow.  It  is  a 
great  and  various  machine — To  regulate  the  numberless  movements 
of  its  several  parts,  and  combine  them  into  effect  for  the  good  of  the 
whole,  requires  the  superintending  wisdom  and  energy  of  the  supreme 
power  in  the  empire.  But  this  supreme  power  has  no  effect  towards 
internal  taxation — for  it  does  not  exist  in  that  relation.  There  is  no 
such  thing,  no  such  idea  in  this  constitution,  as  a  supreme  power 
operating  upon  property. 

Let  this  distinction  then  remain  forever  ascertained.  Taxation 
is  theirs,  commercial  regulation  is  ours.  As  an  American,  I  would 
recognize  to  England  her  supreme  right  of  regulating  commerce  and 
navigation.  As  an  Englishman,  by  birth  and  principle,  I  recognize 
to  the  Americans  their  supreme,  unalienable  right  to  their  property; 
a  right  which  they  are  justified  in  the  defence  of,  to  the  extremity. 
To  maintain  this  principle  is  the  common  cause  of  the  whigs  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  on  this.  'Tis  liberty  to  liberty  en 
gaged,  that  they  will  defend  themselves,  their  families  and  their  coun 
try.  In  this  great  cause  they  are  immovably  allied.  It  is  the  alliance 
of  God  and  nature — immutable,  eternal,  fixed  as  the  firmament  of 
Heaven!  To  such  united  force,  what  force  shall  be  opposed'  What, 
my  lords,  a  few  regiments  in  America,  and  17  or  18,000  men  at  home! 
The  idea  is  too  ridiculous  to  take  up  a  moment  of  your  lordships' 
time — nor  can  such  a  national  principled  union  be  resisted  by  the 
tricks  of  office  or  ministerial  manoeuvres.  Laying  papers  on  your 
table,  or  counting  noses  on  a  division,  will  not  avert  or  postpone  the 
hour  of  danger.  It  must  arrive,  my  lords,  unless  these  fatal  acts  are 
done  away;  it  must  arrive  in  all  its  horrors.  And  then  these  boastful 
ministers,  'spite  of  all  their  confidence  and  all  their  manoeuvres,  shall 
be  forced  to  hide  their  heads.  But  it  is  not  repealing  this  act  of  Par 
liament,  or  that  act  of  Parliament — it  is  not  repealing  a.  piece  of  parch 
ment  that  can  restore  America  to  your  bosom.  You  must  repeal  her 
fears  and  her  resentments,  and  you  may  then  hope  for  her  love  and 
gratitude.  But  now  insulted  with  an  armed  force  posted  in  Boston, 
irritated  with  an  hostile  array  before  her  eyes,  her  concessions,  if  you 
could  force  them,  would  be  suspicious  and  insecure.  They  will  be, 
irato  ammo.  They  will  not  be  the  sound,  honorable  pactions  of  free 
men;  they  will  be  the  dictates  of  fear  and  the  extortions  of  force.  But 
it  is  more  than  evident  that  you  cannot  force  them,  principled  and 
united  as  they  are,  to  your  unworthy  terms  of  submission.  It  is  im 
possible.  And  when  I  hear  General  Gage  censured  for  inactivity,  I 
must  retort  with  indignation  on  those  whose  intemperate  measures 
and  improvident  councils  have  betrayed  him  into  his  present  situation. 
His  situation  reminds  me,  my  lords,  of  the  answer  of  a  French  general 
in  the  civil  wars  of  France,  Monsieur  Turenne,  I  think.  The  queen 
said  to  him,  with  some  peevishness,  I  observe  that  you  were  often 
very  near  the  prince  during  the  campaign,  why  did  you  not  take  him? 
— The  Mareschal  replied  with  great  coolness — J'avois  grand  peztr,  qne 


WILLIAM  PITT— EARL    OF  CHATHAM.  107 

Monsieur    le  prince   ne   me  pris — I  was  very  much  afraid  the    prince 
would  take  me 

When  your  lordships  look  at  the  papers  transmitted  us  from  Amer 
ica,  when  you  consider  their  decency,  firmness  and  wisdom,  you 
cannot  but  respect  their  cause,  and  wish  to  make  it  your  own — for 
myself  I  must  declare  and  avow  that,  in  all  my  reading  and  observa 
tion,  and  it  has  been  my  favourite  study — I  have  read  Thucydides,  and 
have  studied  and  admired  the  master  statesman  of  the  world — that  for 
solidity  and  reasoning,  force  of  sagacity,  and  wisdom  of  conclusion, 
under  such  a  complication  of  different  circumstances,  no  nation  or 
body  of  men  can  stand  in  preference  to  the  general  Congress  at 
Philadelphia. — I  trust  it  is  obvious  to  your  lordships,  that  all  attempts 
to  impose  servitude  on  such  men,  to  establish  despotism  over  such  a 
mighty  continental  nation — must  be  vain — must  be  futile. — We  shall 
be  forced  ultimately  to  retract,  whilst  we  can,  not  when  we  must.  I 
say  we  must  necessarily  undo  these  violent  and  oppressive  a^ts  . — 
they  must  be  repealed — you  will  repeal  them  •  I  pledge  myself  for  it 
you  will  in  the  end  repeal  them,  I  stake  my  reputation  on  it  I  will 
consent  to  be  taken  for  an  idiot  if  they  are  not  finally  repealed 
Avoid  then  this  humiliating,  disgraceful  necessity. — With  a  dignity 
becoming  your  exalted  situation,  make  the  first  advances  to  concord, 
to  peace  and  happiness,  for  that  is  your  true  dignity,  to  act  with  pru 
dence  and  with  justice.  That  you  should  first  concede  is  obvious  from 
sourrd  and  rational  policy.  Concession  comes  with  better  grace  and 
more  salutary  effect  from  the  superior  power.  It  reconciles  superior 
ity  of  power  with  the  feelings  of  men  ;  and  establishes  solid  confidence 
in  the  foundation  of  affection  and  gratitude.  So  thought  the  wisest 
poet,  and  perhaps  the  wisest  man  in  political  sagacity,  the  friend  of 
Maecenas,  and  the  eulogist  of  Augustus.  To  him  the  adopted  son  and 
successor  of  the  first  Caesar,  to  him  the  master  of  the  world,  he  wisely 
urged  this  conduct  of  prudence  and  dignity. 

Tuqiie,  prior,  etc.  VIRGIL. 

Every  motive,  therefore,  of  justice  and  of  policy,  of  dignity  and  of 
prudence,  urges  you  to  allay  the  ferment  in  America,  by  a  removal  of 
your  troops  from  Boston,  by  a  repeal  of  your  acts  of  parliament,  and 
by  demonstration  of  amicable  dispositions  toward  your  colonies, 
On  the  other  hand,  every  danger  and  every  hazard,  impend  to  deter  you 
from  perseverance  in  your  present  ruinous  measures.  Foreign  war 
hanging  over  your  heads  by  a  slight  and  brittle  thread  .  France  and 
Spain  watching  for  the  maturity  of  your  errors  ;  with  a  vigilant  eye 
to  America  and  the  temper  of  your  colonies,  more  than  to  their  own 
concerns,  be  they  what  they  may. 

To  conclude,  my  lords,  if  the  ministers  thus  persevere  in  misadvis 
ing  and  misleading  the  king,  I  will  not  say  that  they  can  alienate  his 
subjects  from  his  crown,  but  I  will  affirm  that  they  will  make  the 
crown  not  worth  his  wearing.  I  shall  not  say  that  the  king  is  betrayed 
but  I  will  pronounce  that  the  kingdom  is  undone. 


1 08  A  ME  RICA  N  PA  TRIO  7  'ISM. 


SPEECH    ON  A  RESOLUTION    TO  PUT  VIRGINIA    INTO  A 
STATE  OF  DEFENCE. 

PATRICK  HENRY. 

Richmond,  Va.,  March  23,  1775. 

MR.  PRESIDENT — No  man  thinks  more  highly  than  I  do  of  the  patri 
otism,  as  well  as  abilities,  of  the  very  worthy  gentlemen  who  have  just 
addressed  the  house.  But  different  men  often  see  the  same  subject  in 
different  lights  ;  and,  therefore,  I  hope  it  will  not  be  thought  disrespect 
ful  to  those  gentlemen,  if,  entertaining,  as  I  do,  opinions  of  acharacter 
very  opposite  to  theirs,  I  shall  speak  forth  my  sentiments  freely  and 
without  reserve.  This  is  no  time  for  ceremony.  The  question  before 
the  house  is  one  of  awful  moment  to  this  country.  For  my  own  part, 
I  consider  it  as  nothing  less  than  a  question  of  freedom  or  slavery  ; 
and  in  proportion  to  the  magnitude  of  the  subject  ought  to  be  the 
freedom  of  the  debate.  It  is  only  in  this  way  that  we  can  hope  to  arrive 
at  truth,  and  fulfil  the  great  responsibility  which  we  hold  to  God  and 
our  country.  Should  I  keep  back  my  opinions  at  such  a  time,  through 
fear  of  giving  offence,  I  should  consider  myself  as  guilty  of  treason 
towards  my  country,  and  of  an  act  of  disloyalty  toward  the  Majesty 
of  Heaven,  which  I  revere  above  all  earthly  kings. 

Mr.  President,  it  is  natural  to  man  to  indulge  in  the  illusions  of 
hope.  We  are  apt  to  shut  our  eyes  against  a  painful  truth,  and  listen 
to  the  song  of  that  siren,  till  she  transforms  us  into  beasts.  Is 
this  the  part  of  wise  men,  engaged  in  a  great  and  arduous  struggle  for 
liberty?  Are  we  disposed  to  be  of  the  number  of  those,  who,  having 
eyes,  see  not,  and  having  ears,  hear  not,  the  things  which  so  nearly 
concern  their  temporal  salvation  ?  For  my  part,  whatever  anguish  of 
spirit  it  may  cost,  I  am  willing  to  know  the  whole  truth  ;  to  know  the 
worst,  and  to  provide  for  it. 

I  have  but  one  lamp  by  which  my  feet  are  guided  ;  and  that  is  the 
lamp  of  experience.  I  know  of  no  way  of  judging  of  the  future  but 
by  the  past.  And  judging  by  the  past,  I  wish  to  know  what  there  has 
been  in  the  conduct  of  the  British  ministry  for  the  last  ten  years,  to 
justify  those  hopes  with  which  gentlemen  have  been  pleased  to  solace 
themselves  and  the  house  ?  Is  it  that  insidious  smile  with  which  our 
petition  has  been  lately  received  ?  Trust  it  not,  sir  ;  It  will  prove  a 
snare  to  you  feet.  Suffer  not  yourselves  to  be  betrayed  with  a  kiss. 
Ask  yourselves  how  this  gracious  reception  of  our  petition  comports 
with  those  warlike  preparations  which  cover  our  waters  and  darken 
our  land.  Are  fleets  and  armies  necessary  to  a  work  of  love  and 
reconciliation  ?  Have  we  shown  ourselves  so  unwilling  to  be  recon 
ciled,  that  force  must  be  called  in  to  win  back  our  love  ?  Let  us  not 


PATRICK  HENRY.  109 

deceive  ourselves,  sir.  These  are  the  implements  of  war  and  subju 
gation  ;  the  last  arguments  to  which  kings  resort.  I  ask  gentlemen,  sir, 
what  means  this  martial  array,  if  its  purpose  be  not  to  force  us  to 
submission  ?  Can  gentlemen  assign  any  other  possible  motive  for  it  ? 
Has  Great  Britain  any  enemy,  in  this  quarter  of  the  world,  to  call  for 
all  this  accumulation  of  navies  and  armies  ?  No,  sir,  she  has  none. 
They  are  meant  for  us  :  they  can  be  meant  for  no  other.  They  are 
sent  over  to  bind  and  rivet  upon  us  those  chains,  which  the  British 
ministry  have  been  so  long  forging.  And  what  ha^e  we  to  oppose  to 
them  ?  Shall  we  try  argument  ?  Sir,  we  have  been  trying  that  for 
the  last  ten  years.  Have  we  anything  new  to  offer  upon  the  subject  ? 
Nothing.  We  have  held  the  subject  up  in  every  light  of  which  it  is 
capable  ;  but  it  has  been  all  in  vain.  Shall  we  resort  to  entreaty  and 
humble  supplication  ?  What  terms  shall  we  find,  which  have  not  been 
already  exhausted  ?  Let  us  not,  I  beseech  you,  sir,  deceive  ourselves 
longer.  Sir,  we  have  done  everything  that  could  be  done,  to  avert 
the  storm  which  is  now  coming  on.  We  have  petitioned;  we  have 
remonstrated  ;  we  have  supplicated  ;  we  have  prostrated  ourselves 
before  the  throne,  and  have  implored  its  interposition  to  arrest  the 
tyrannical  hands  of  the  ministry  and  Parliament.  Our  petitions  have 
been  slighted  ;  our  remonstrances  have  produced  additional  violence 
and  insult ;  our  supplications  have  been  disregarded  ;  and  we  have 
been  spurned,  with  contempt,  from  the  foot  of  the  throne  !  In  vain, 
after  these  things,  may  we  indulge  the  fond  hope  of  peace  and  recon 
ciliation.  There  is  no  longer  any  room  for  hope.  If  we  wish  to  be 
free — if  we  mean  to  preserve  inviolate  those  inestimable  privileges 
for  which  we  have  been  so  long  contending — if  we  mean  not  basely 
to  abandon  the  noble  struggle  in  wrhich  we  have  been  so  long  engaged, 
and  which  we  have  pledged  ourselves  never  to  abandon,  until  the 
glorious  object  of  our  contest  shall  be  obtained — we  must  fight  !  I 
repeat  it,  sir,  we  must  fight !  An  appeal  to  arms  and  to  the  God  of 
Hosts  is  all  that  is  left  us  ! 

They  tell  us,  sir,  that  we  are  weak  ;  unable  to  cope  with  so  for 
midable  an  adversary.  But  when  shall  we  be  stronger  ?  Will  it  be 
the  next  week,  or  the  next  year  ?  Will  it  be  when  we  are  totally 
disarmed,  and  when  a  British  guard  shall  be  stationed  in  every  house  ? 
Shall  we  gather  strength  by  irresolution  and  inaction  ?  Shall  we 
acquire  the  means  of  effectual  resistance,  by  lying  supinely  on  our 
backs  and  hugging  the  delusive  phantom  of  hope,  until  our  enemies 
shall  have  bound  us  hand  and  foot  ?  Sir,  we  are  not  weak,  if  we 
make  a  proper  use  of  those  means  which  the  God  of  nature  hath 
placed  in  our  power.  Three  millions  of  people,  armed  in  the  holy 
cause  of  liberty,  and  in  such  a  country  as  that  which  we  possess,  are 
invincible  by  any  force  which  our  enemy  can  send  against  us. 
Besides,  sir,  we  shall  not  fight  our  battles  alone.  There  is  a  just  God 
who  presides  over  the  destinies  of  nations,  and  who  will  raise  up 


no  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

friends  to  fight  our  battles  for  us.  The  battle,  sir,  is  not  to  the  strong 
alone  ;  it  is  to  the  vigilant,  the  active,  the  brave.  Besides,  sir,  we  have 
no  election.  If  we  were  base  enough  to  desire  it,  it  is  now  too  late  to 
retire  from  the  contest.  There  is  no  retreat,  but  in  submission  and 
slavery  !  Our  chains  are  forged  !  Their  clanking  may  be  heard  on 
the  plains  of  Boston  !  The  war  is  inevitable — and  let  it  come  !  I 
repeat  it,  sir,  let  it  come. 

It  is  in  vain,  sir,  to  extenuate  the  matter.  Gentlemen  may  cry, 
Peace,  peace — but  there  is  no  peace.  The  war  is  actually  begun  ! 
The  next  gale,  that  sweeps  from  the  north,  will  bring  to  our  ears  the 
clash  of  resounding  arms  !  Our  brethren  are  already  in  the  field  ! 
Why  stand  we  here  idle  ?  What  is  it  that  gentlemen  wish  ?  What 
would  they  have  ?  Is  life  so  dear,  or  peace  so  sweet,  as  to  be  pur 
chased  at  the  price  of  chains  and  slavery  ?  Forbid  it,  Almighty  God  ! 
I  know  not  what  course  others  may  take  ;  but  as  for  me,  give  me 
liberty  or  give  me  death  ! 


ORATION  ON  THE  RE-INTERMENT  OF  WARREN. 

PEREZ    MORTON. 

Boston,  April  8,    1776. 

ILLUSTRIOUS  RELICS  ! — What  tidings  from  the  grave  ?  why  hast  thou 
left  the  peaceful  mansions  of  that  tomb,  to  visit  again  this  troubled 
earth!  art  thou  the  welcome  messenger  of  peace!  art  thou  risen  again  to 
exhibit  thy  glorious  wounds,  and  through  them  proclaim  salvation  to 
thy  country!  or  art  thou  come  to  demand  the  last  debt  of  humanity  to 
which  your  rank  and  merit  have  so  justly  entitled  you — but  which  has 
been  so  long  ungenerously  withheld!  and  art  thou  angry  at  the  bar 
barous  usage?  be  appeased  sweet  ghost!  for  though  thy  body  has 
long  laid  undistinguished  among  the  vulgar  dead,  scarce  privileged 
with  earth  enough  to  hide  it  from  the  birds  of  prey;  though  not  a 
friendly  sigh  was  uttered  o'er  thy  grave;  and  though  the  execration  of 
an  impious  foe,  were  all  thy  funeral  knells;  yet,  matchless  patriot!  thy 
memory  has  been  embalmed  in  the  affections  of  thy  grateful  country 
men;  who,  in  their  breasts,  have  raised  eternal  monuments  to  thy 
bravery! 

But  let  us  leave  the  beloved  remains,  and  contemplate  for  a  moment 
those  virtues  of  the  man,  the  exercise  of  which  have  so  deservedly 
endeared  him  to  the  honest  among  the  great,  and  the  good  among  the 
humble. 

In  the  private  walks  of  life,  he  was  a  pattern  for  mankind.  The 
tears  of  her  to  whom  the  world  is  indebted  for  so  much  virtue,  are  silent 
heralds  of  his  filial  piety;  while  his  tender  offspring  in  lisping  out  their 


PEREZ  MORTON.  Ill 

father's  care,  proclaim  his  parental  affection;  and  an  Adams  can 
witness  with  how  much  zeal  he  loved,  where  he  had  formed  the  sacred 
connexion  of  a  friend;  their  kindred  souls  were  so  closely  twined,  that 
both  felt  one  joy,  both  one  affliction.  In  conversation  he  had  the 
happy  talent  of  addressing  his  subject  both  to  the  understanding  and 
the  passions;  from  the  one  he  forced  conviction,  from  the  other  he 
stole  assent. 

He  was  blessed  with  a  complacency  of  disposition  and  equanimity  of 
temper,  which  peculiarly  endeared  him  to  his  friends,  and  which,  added 
to  the  deportment  of  the  gentleman,  commanded  reverence  and  esteem 
even  from  his  enemies. 

Such  was  the  tender  sensibility  of  his  soul,  that  he  need  but  see  dis 
tress  to  feel  it,  and  contribute  to  its  relief.  He  was  deaf  to  the  calls  of 
interest  even  in  the  course  of  his  profession;  and  wherever  he  beheld 
an  indigent  object,  which  claimed  his  healing  skill,  he  administered  it, 
without  even  the  hope  of  any  other  reward  than  that  which  resulted 
from  the  reflection  of  having  so  far  promoted  the  happiness  of  his 
fellow-men. 

In  the  social  departments  of  life,  practising  upon  the  strength  of 
that  doctrine  he  used  so  earnestly  to  inculcate  himself,  that  nothing 
so  much  conduced  to  enlighten  mankind,  and  advance  the  great  end  of 
society  at  large,  as  the  frequent  interchange  of  sentiments,  in  friendly 
meeting;  we  find  him  constantly  engaged  in  this  eligible  labor;  but  on 
none  did  he  place  so  high  a  value,  as  on  that  most  honorable  of  all 
detached  societies,  The  Free  and  Accepted  Masons:  into  this  fraternity 
he  was  early  initiated;  and  after  having  given  repeated  proofs  of  a  rapid 
proficiency  in  the  arts,  and  after  evidencing  by  his  life,  the  professions 
of  his  lips — finally,  as  the  reward  of  his  merit,  he  was  commissioned 
The  Most  Worshipful  Grand-Master  of  all  the  ancient  Masons,  through 
North  America.  And  you,  brethren,  are  living  testimonies,  with  how 
much  honor  to  himself,  and  benefit  to  the  craft  universal,  he  discharged 
the  duties  of  his  elevated  trust;  with  what  sweetened  accents  he 
courted  your  attention,  while,  with  wisdom,  strength,  and  beauty  he 
instructed  his  lodges  in  the  secret  arts  of  Freemasonry;  what  perfect 
order  and  decorum  he  preserved  in  the  government  of  them;  and,  in 
all  his  conduct,  what  a  bright  example  he  set  us,  to  live  within  com 
pass  and  act  upon  the  square. 

With  what  pleasure  did  he  silence  the  wants  of  poor  and  pennyless 
brethren;  yea,  the  necessitous  everywhere,  though  ignorant  of  the 
mysteries  of  the  craft,  from  his  benefactions,  felt  the  happy  effects 
of  that  institution  which  is  founded  on  faith,  hope  and  charity.  And 
the  world  may  cease  to  wonder,  that  he  so  readily  offered  up  hie  life, 
on  the  altar  of  his  country,  when  they  are  told  that  the  main  pillar  of 
masonry  is  the  love  of  mankind. 

The  fates,  as  though  they  would  reveal,  in  the  person  of  our  Grand 
Master,  those  mysteries  which  have  so  long  lain  hid  from  the 


H2  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

world  have  suffered  him,  like  the  great  master-builder  in  the  temple 
of  old,  to  fall  by  the  hands  of  ruffians,  and  be  again  raised  in  honor 
and  authority;  we  searched  in  the  field  for  the  murdered  son  of  a 
widow,  and  we  found  him,  by  the  turf  and  the  twig,  buried  on  the 
brow  of  a  hill,  though  not  in  a  decent  grave.  And  though  we  must 
again  commit  his  body  to  the  tomb,  yet  our  breasts  shall  be  the  bury 
ing  spot  of  his  masonic  virtues,  and  there — 

"  An  adamantine  monument  we'll  rear, 
With  this  inscription,"   Masonry  "  lies  here." 

In  public  life  the  sole  object  of  his  ambition  was,  to  acquire  the  con 
science  of  virtuous  enterprises;  amor  patrie  was  the  spring  of  his  ac 
tions,  and  wens  conscia  recti  was  his  guide.  And  on  this  security  he 
was  on  every  occasion  ready  to  sacrifice  his  health,  his  interest,  and 
his  ease,  to  the  sacred  calls  of  his  country.  When  the  liberties  of 
America  were  attacked,  he  appeared  an  early  champion  in  the  con 
test;  and  though  his  knowledge  and  abilities  would  have  insured 
riches  and  preferment  (could  he  have  stooped  to  prostitution)  yet  he 
nobly  withstood  the  fascinating  charm,  tossed  fortune  back  her  plume, 
and  pursued  the  inflexible  purpose  of  his  soul  in  guiltless  competence. 

He  sought  not  the  airy  honors  of  a  name,  else  many  of  those  publi 
cations  which,  in  the  early  period  of  our  controversy,  served  to  open 
the  minds  of  the  people,  had  not  appeared  anonymous.  In  every  time 
of  eminent  danger,  his  fellow-citizens  flew  to  him  for  advice;  like  the 
orator  of  Athens,  he  gave  it  and  dispelled  their  fears — twice  did  they 
call  him  to  the  rostrum  to  commemorate  the  massacre  of  their  breth 
ren;  and  from  that  instance,  in  persuasive  language  he  taught  them, 
not  only  the  dangerous  tendency  but  the  actual  mischief,  of  stationing 
a  military  force  in  a  free  city,  in  a  time  of  peace.  They  learnt  the 
profitable  lesson  and  penned  it  among  their  grievances. 

But  his  abilities  were  too  great,  his  deliberations  too  much  wanted, 
to  be  confined  to  the  limits  of  a  single  city,  and  at  a  time  when  our 
liberties  were  most  critically  in  danger  from  the  secret  machinations 
and  open  assaults  of  our  enemies,  this  town,  to  their  lasting  honor, 
elected  him  to  take  a  part  in  the  councils  of  the  state.  And  with  what 
fathfulness  he  discharged  the  important  delegation,  the  neglect  of  his 
private  concerns,  and  his  unwearied  attendance  on  that  betrustment, 
will  sufficiently  testify;  and  the  records  of  that  virtuous  assembly  will 
remain  the  testimonials  of  his  accomplishments  as  a  statesman,  and 
his  integrity  and  services  as  a  patriot  through  all  posterity. 

The  Congress  of  our  colony  could  not  observe  so  much  virtue  and 
greatness  without  honoring  it  with  the  highest  mark  of  their  favor,  and 
by  the  free  suffrages  of  that  uncorrupted  body  of  freemen  he  was  soon 
called  to  preside  in  the  Senate — where,  by  his  daily  counsels  and 
exertions,  he  was  constantly  promoting  the  great  cause  of  general 
liberty. 


PEREZ  MORTON.  113 

But  when  he  found  the  tools  of  oppression  were  obstinately  bent  on 
violence;  when  he  found  the  vengeance  of  the  British  court  must  be 
glutted  with  blood;  he  determined  that  what  he  could  not  effect  by  his 
eloquence  or  his  pen,  he  would  bring  to  purpose  by  his  sword.  And 
on  the  memorable  ic;th  of  April,  he  appeared  in  the  field  under  the 
united  characters  of  the  general,  the  soldier,  and  the  physician.  Here 
he  was  seen  animating  his  countrymen  to  battle,  and  fighting  by  their 
side,  and  there  he  was  found  administering  healing  comforts  to  the 
wounded.  And  when  he  had  repelled  the  unprovoked  assaults  of  the 
enemy,  and  had  driven  them  back  into  their  strongholds,  like  the 
virtuous  chief  of  Rome,  he  returned  to  the  Senate,  and  presided  again 
at  the  councils  of  the  fathers. 

When  the  vanquished  foe  had  rallied  their  disordered  army,  and 
by  the  acquisition  of  fresh  strength,  again  presumed  to  fight  against 
freemen,  our  patriot,  ever  anxious  to  be  where  he  could  do  the  most 
good,  again  put  off  the  Senator,  and,  in  contempt  of  danger  flew  to 
the  field  of  battle,  where  after  a  stern,  and  almost  victorious  resistance, 
ah!  too  soon  for  his  country!  he  sealed  his  principles  with  his  blood — 
then — 

"  Freedom  \vcpt  that  merit  could  not  save," 
But  Warren's  manes  "  must  enrich  the  grave." 

Enriched  indeed!  and  the  heights  of  Charlestown  shall  be  more  mem 
orable  for  thy  fall,  than  the  Plains  of  Abraham  are 'for  that  of  the  hero 
of  Britain.  For  while  he  died  contending  for  a  single  country,  you 
fell  in  the  cause  of  virtue  and  mankind. 

The  greatness  of  his  soul  shone  even  in  the  moment  of  death  ;  for, 
if  fame  speak  true,  in  his  last  agonies  he  met  the  insults  of  his  barbar 
ous  foe  with  his  wonted  magnanimity,  and  with  the  true  spirit  of  a 
soldier,  frowned  at  their  impotence. 

In  fine,  to  complete  the  great  character — like  Harrington  he  wrote — 
like  Cicero  he  spoke — like  Hampden  he  lived — and  like  Wolfe  he 
died. 

And  can  we,  my  countrymen,  with  indifference  behold  so  much 
valor  laid  prostrate  by  the  hand  of  British  tyranny!  and  can  we  ever 
grasp  that  hand  in  affection  again?  are  we  not  yet  convinced  "  that  he 
who  hunts  the  woods  for  prey,  the  naked  and  untutored  Indian,  is  less 
a  savage  than  the  king  of  Britain!"  have  we  not  proofs,  wrote  in 
blood,  that  the  corrupted  nation,  from  whence  we  sprang  (though 
there  may  be  some  traces  of  their  ancient  virtue  left),  are  stubbornly 
fixed  on  our  destruction!  and  shall  we  still  court  a  dependence  on 
such  a  state?  still  contend  fora  connexion  with  those  who  have  forfeited 
not  only  every  kindred  claim,  but  even  their  title  to  humanity?  forbid 
it  the  spirit  of  the  brave  Montgomery!  forbid  it  the  spirit  of  immortal 
Warren!  forbid  it  the  spirits  of  all  our  valiant  countrymen!  who  fought 
bled,  and  died  for  far  different  purposes,  and  who  would  have  thought 
the  purchase  dear  indeed!  to  have  paid  their  lives  for  the  paltry  boon 


114  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

of  displacing  one  set  of  villains  in  power,  to  make  way  for  another. 
No.  They  contended  for  the  establishment  of  peace,  liberty,  and 
safety  to  their  country;  and  we  are  unworthy  to  be  called  their  coun 
trymen,  if  we  stop  at  any  acquisition  short  of  this. 

Now  is  the  happy  season,  to  sei/e  again  those  rights,  which,  as  men, 
we  are  by  nature  entitled  to,  and  which,  by  contract,  we  never  have 
and  never  could  have  surrendered: — but  which  have  been  repeatedly 
and  violently  attacked  by  the  king,  lords  and  commons  of  Britain. 
Ought  we  not  then  to  disclaim  forever,  the  forfeited  affinity;  and  by  a 
timely  amputation  of  that  rotten  limb  of  the  empire,  prevent  the 
mortification  of  the  whole  ?  ought  we  not  to  listen  to  the  voice  of  our 
slaughtered  brethren,  who  are  now  proclaiming  aloud  to  their 
country — 

Go  tell  the  king,  and  tell  him  from  our  spirits, 

That  you  and  Britons  can  be  friends  no  more  ; 

Tell  him,  to  you  all  tyrants  are  the  same  ; 

Or  if  in  bonds,  the  never  conquered  soul 

Can  feel  a  pang,  more  keen  than  slavery's  self, 

'Tis  where  the  chains  that  crush  you  into  dust, 

Are  forg'd  by  hands,  from  which  you  hop'd  for  freedom. 

Yes,  we  ought,  and  will — we  will  assert  the  blood  of  our  murdered 
hero  against  thy  hostile  oppressions.  O  shameless  Britain!  and  when 
"thy  cloud-capped  towers,  thy  gorgeous  palaces"  shall,  by  the  teeth 
of  pride  and  folly,  be  levelled  with  the  dust — and  when  thy  glory  shall 
have  faded  like  the  western  sunbeam — the  name  and  the  virtues  of 
Warren  shall  remain  immortal. 


THE  OCCUPATION  OF  DORCHESTER  HEIGHTS. 

EDWARD  EVERETT. 
Dorchester,  Mass.,  July  4,  1855. 

But  there  is  another  circumstance  which  must  ever  clothe  the  occu 
pation  of  Dorchester  Heights  with  an  affecting  interest.  It  was  the 
first  great  military  operation  of  Washington  in  the  Revolutionary  war; 
not  a  battle,  indeed,  but  the  preparation  for  a  battle  on  the  grandest 
scale,  planned  with  such  skill  and  executed  with  such  vigor  as  at  once 
to  paralyze  the  army  and  navy  of  the  enemy  and  force  him,  without 
striking  a  blow,  to  an  ignominious  retreat.  Washington  was  com 
missioned  as  Commander  in  Chief  of  the  American  armies  on  the  day 
the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill  was  fought.  The  siege  of  Boston  had  been 
already  formed  ;  and  those  noble  lines  of  circumvallation,  twelve 
miles  in  compass,  of  which  some  faint  remains  may  still  be  traced, 
had  been  drawn  along  the  high  grounds  of  Charlestown,  Cambridge, 
Roxbury,  and  Dorchester.  An  adventurous  expedition  against 


EDWARD  EVERETT.  H5 

Quebec  had  failed;  partial  collisions  had  taken  place  wherever  there 
were  royal  forces  throughout  the  country,  but  nothing  decisive  was 
brought  about,  and  a  feverish  excitement  pervaded  the  continent. 
Congress  was  still  conducting  the  war  without  a  constitutional  exist 
ence,  and  all  eyes  and  hearts  were  turned  to  the  army  and  to  Wash 
ington.  Men  at  a  safe  distance,  and  with  nothing  at  stake,  are  prone 
to  judge  severely  the  conduct  of  those  who  are  at  the  post  of  responsi 
bility  and  danger.  Washington  himself  felt  the  delicacy  and  the 
hazards  of  his  position;  the  importance  of  sustaining  the  expectations 
of  the  country;  the  necessity  of  decisive  results.  But  his  army  was 
without  discipline  or  experience,  save  a  few  veterans  of  the  seven 
years'  war,  without  adequate  supplies  of  any  kind,  composed .  of  men 
who  had  left  their  homes  at  a  moment's  warning  and  were  impatient 
to  return;  weakened  by  camp  diseases  and  the  small-pox,  with  a 
stock  of  powder  so  scanty  that  stratagem  was  resorted  to  by  the  com 
mander  to  conceal  the  deficiency  even  from  his  officers.  Thus  the 
summer  and  the  autumn  wore  away,  and  every  week  increased  the 
public  impatience  and  added  to  the  embarrassments  of  Washington. 
His  private  letters  at  this  time  are  filled  with  the  most  touching  re 
marks  on  his  distressed  condition.  In  a  letter  to  Colonel  Reed,  of  the 
fourteenth  of  January,  1776,  he  says:  "  The  reflection  on  my  situation 
and  that  of  this  army  produces  many  an  unhappy  hour  when  all 
around  me  are  wrapped  in  sleep.  Fe'w  people  know  the  predicament 
we  are  in  on  a  thousand  accounts;  fewer  still  will  believe,  if  any  dis 
aster  happens  to  these  lines,  from  what  cause  it  flows.  I  have  often 
thought  how  much  happier  I  should  have  been,  if,  instead  of  accept 
ing  the  command  under  such  circumstances,  I  had  taken  my  musket 
on  my  shoulder  and  entered  the  ranks;  or,  if  I  could  have  justified 
the  measure  to  posterity  and  my  own  conscience,  had  retired  to  the 
back  country  and  lived  in  a  wigwam." 

At  length,  however,  the  re-enlistment  of  the  army  was  completed; 
advanced  lines  were  thrown  up;  ordnance  captured  at  Ticonderoga 
had  been  transported  by  Knox  with  prodigious  effort  across  the 
country;  ammunition  had  been  taken  by  Manly  in  his  prize  ships; 
shells  were  furnished  from  the  royal  arsenal  at  New  York.  It  was 
Washington's  wish  to  cross  the  ice  at  Boston,  to  carry  the  town  by 
assault,  and  destroy  the  royal  army.  The  ice,  however,  did  not  make 
till  the  middle  of  February,  and  it  was  decided,  by  a  council  of  war, 
that  the  town  could  not  be  assaulted  with  success. 

It  was  then  resolved  to  repeat,  on  a  grander  scale,  with  full  prepara 
tion  and  ample  means,  the  hasty  operation  which  had  brought  on  the 
battle  of  Bunker  Hill  the  preceding  summer.  It  was  determined  first 
to  occupy  the  heights  of  Dorchester,  and,  as  soon  as  an  impregnable 
position  was  secured  there,  to  establish  batteries  on  Nook  Hill  and 
the  other  rising  grounds  nearest  Boston.  The  fleet  in  the  harbor  was 
within  range  of  the  heights;  the  town  was  commanded  from  the  hills 


n 6  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

below.  The  occupation  of  these  points  would  of  necessity  compel 
the  enemy  to  take  the  risk  of  a  decisive  action,  or  to  evacuate  the 
town. 

Washington,  though  preferring  bolder  measures,  yielded  to  the  de 
cision  of  his  council,  and  threw  his  whole  soul  into  the  work.  A  plan 
for  a  grand  combined  movement  was  matured.  The  heights  of  Dor 
chester  were  to  be  occupied  on  the  night  of  the  fourth  of  March,  in 
order  that  the  anticipated  battle  might  be  fought  on  the  anniversary 
of  the  ever-memorable  fifth  of  March,  1770.  As  soon  as  the  convict 
was  engaged  on  the  heights,  Putnam  was  to  cross  from  Cambridge 
with  a  body  of  four  thousand  men,  land  in  two  divisions  in  Boston, 
and,  forcing  his  way  through  the  town,  burst  open  the  fortifica 
tions  on  the  neck,  and  thus  admit  a  division  of  the  American  army 
from  Roxbury.  To  distract  and  occupy  the  attention  of  the  enemy, 
the  town  was  severely  bombarded  from  Somerville,  East  Cambridge, 
and  Roxbury,  during  the  nights  of  the  second,  third,  and  fourth  of 
March. 

I  am  told  by  professional  men  that  these  dispositions  evince  con 
summate  military  skill,  and  are  among  the  facts  which  show  that 
Washington,  too  often  compelled  by  his  situation  to  pursue  the  Fabian 
policy,  possessed  a  talent  for  military  combinations  that  entitles  him 
to  a  place  beside  the  greatest  captains  of  the  last  century. 

The  fourth  of  March,  the  day  so  long  and  anxiously  expected,  at 
length  arrives.  The  troops  are  put  in  motion  in  the  evening  from  the 
American  lines  at  Roxbury  and  Dorchester.  An  advanced  guard  of 
eight  hundred  men  precedes;  the  carts  with  intrenching  tools  came 
next,  with  the  main  body,  twelve  hundred  strong,  under  General 
Thomas;  the  whole  followed  by  a  train  of  three  hundred  wagons 
loaded  with  fascines,  gabions,  and  bundles  of  hay.  They  crossed 
Dorchester  neck  without  being  perceived,  and  reached  their  destina 
tion  in  two  divisions,  one  for  each  of  the  heights.  Bundles  of  hay 
were  placed  on  the  side  of  the  causeway,  at  the  most  exposed  parts, 
as  a  protection  in  case  the  enemy  should  discover  and  attempt  to  in 
terrupt  the  movement.  Under  this  shelter  parties  from  the  American 
army  passed  several  times  during  the  night,  without  being  perceived, 
though  it  was  bright  moonlight.  This  was  owing,  no  doubt,  to  the 
cannonade  and  bombardment  of  the  town  from  the  opposite  quarter, 
by  which  also  the  whole  surrounding  country  was  thrown  into  a  state 
of  painful  expectation  and  alarm.  The  operations  were  conducted  by 
Grid  ley,  an  experienced  engineer  of  the  old  French  war.  He  was 
aided  by  Colonel  Putnam,  in  laying  out  and  executing  the  works, 
which,  before  morning,  though  incomplete,  were  adequate  against 
grapeshot  and  musketry. 

Washington  was  present  on  the  heights.  In  the  strictness  of  mili 
tary  duty,  the  presence  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  was 
not  required  on  the  ground  on  such  an  occasion ,  but  the  operation 


EDWARD  EVERETT.  117 

was  too  important  to  be  trusted  entirely  to  subordinates.  Accom 
panied  by  Mr.  James  Bowdoin,  then  a  young  man  of  twenty-two, 
afterwards  your  respected  fellow  citizen  and  the  representative  of 
Dorchester  in  the  Convention  of  Massachusetts,  which  adopted  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  Washington,  whose  headquarters 
were  at  Cambridge,  repaired,  on  this  eventful  night,  to  Dorchester 
Heights.  He  has  left  no  record  descriptive  of  the  scene  or  of  his 
thoughts  and  emotions  at  what  he  must  have  regarded,  at  that  time, 
as  the  most  eventful  hour  of  his  life,  and  a  most  critical  moment  of 
the  war  '  "  The  moon  shining  in  its  full  lustre"  (they  are  the  words 
of  Washington),  revealed  every  object  through  the  clear,  cold  air  of 
early  March,  with  that  spectral  distinctness  with  which  things  present 
themselves  to  the  straining  eye  at  a  great  juncture.  All  immediately 
around  him  intense  movement,  but  carried  on  in  death-like  silence; 
nothing  heard  but  the  incessant  tread  of  busy  feet  and  the  dull  sound 
of  the  mattock  upon  the  soil,  frozen  so  deep  as  to  make  it  necessary 
to  place  reliance  on  the  fascines  and  gabions.  Beneath  him,  the 
slumbering  batteries  of  the  castle;  the  roadstead  and  harbor  filled  with 
the  vessels  of  the  royal  fleet,  motionless,  except  as  they  swung  around 
at  their  moorings  with  the  turn  of  the  midnight  tide;  the  beleaguered 
city,  occupied  by  a  powerful  army  and  a  considerable  non-combatant 
population,  startled  into  unnatural  vigilance  by  the  incessant  and  de 
structive  cannonade,  but  yet  unobservant  of  the  great  operations  in 
progress  so  near  them;  the  surrounding  country,  dotted  with  a  hun 
dred  rural  settlements  roused  from  the  deep  sleep  of  a  New  England 
village  by  the  unwonted  tumult  and  glare. 

It  has  been  stated  in  one  or  two  wrell-authenticated  cases  of  persons 
restored  after  drowning,  where  life  has  been  temporarily  extinguished 
in  the  full  glow  of  health,  with  the  faculties  unimpaired  by  disease  and 
in  perfect  action,  that,  in  the  last  few  minutes  of  conscious  existence, 
the  whole  series  of  the  events  of  the  entire  life  comes  rushing  back  to 
the  mind,  distinctly  but  with  inconceivable  rapidity  ;  that  the  whole 
life  is  lived  over  again  in  a  moment.  Such  a  narrative,  by  a  person 
of  high  official  position  in  a  foreign  country,  and  perfect  credibility,  I 
have  read.  We  may  well  suppose  that  at  this  most  critical  moment 
of  Washington's  life,  a  similar  concentration  of  thought  would  take 
place,  and  that  the  events  of  his  past  existence  as  they  had  prepared 
him  for  it, — his  training  while  yet  a  boy  in  the  wilderness,  his  escape 
from  drowning  and  the  rifle  of  the  savage  on  his  perilous  mission  to 
Venango,  the  shower  of  iron  hail  through  which  he  rode  unharmed  on 
Braddock's  field,  would  now  crowd  through  his  memory;  that  much 
more  also  the  past  life  of  his  country,  the  early  stages  of  the  great 
conflict  now  brought  to  its  crisis,  and  still  more  solemnly  the  possi 
bilities  of  the  future  for  himself  and  for  America,  would  press  upon 
him;  the  ruin  of  the  patriotic  cause  if  he  failed  at  the  outset;  the  tri 
umphant  consolidation  of  the  revolution  if  he  prevailed;  with  highef 


Ii8  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

visions  of  the  powerful  family  of  rising  states,  their  auspicious  growth 
and  prosperous  fortunes,  hovering  like  a  dream  of  angels  in  the  re 
moter  prospect; — all  this,  attended  with  the  immense  desire  of  honest 
fame  (for  we  cannot  think  even  Washington's  mind  too  noble  to  pos 
sess  the  "last  infirmity"),  the  intense  inward  glow  of  manly  heroism 
about  to  act  its  great  part  on  a  sublime  theatre, — the  softness  of  the 
man  chastening  the  severity  of  the  chieftain,  and  deeply  touched  at  the 
sufferings  and  bereavements  about  to  be  caused  by  the  conflict  of  the 
morrow ;  the  still  tender  emotions  that  breathed  their  sanctity  over  all  the 
rest;  the  thought  of  the  faithful  and  beloved  wife  who  had  followed 
him  from  Mount  Vernon,  and  of  the  aged  mother  whose  heart  was 
aching  in  her  Virginia  home  for  glad  tidings  of  "  George,  who  was  al 
ways  a  good  boy," — all  these  pictures,  visions,  feelings,  pangs — too 
vast  for  words,  too  deep  for  tears,  but  swelling,  no  doubt,  in  one 
unuttered  prayer  to  Heaven — we  may  well  imagine  to  have  filled  the 
soul  of  Washington  at  that  decisive  hour,  as  he  stood  upon  the  heights 
of  Dorchester,  with  the  holy  stars  for  his  camp-fire,  and  the  deep  fold 
ing  shadows  of  the  night,  looped  by  the  hand  of  God  to  the  four  quar 
ters  of  the  sky,  for  the  curtains  of  his  tent. 

The  morning  of  the  fifth  of  March  dawned,  and  the  enemy  beheld 
with  astonishment,  looming  through  a  heavy  mist,  the  operations  of 
the  night.  Gen.  Howe  wrote  to  the  minister  that  they  must  have  been 
the  work  of  at  least  twelve  thousand  men.  In  the  account  given  by 
one  of  his  officers,  and  adopted  in  the  Annual  Register,  it  is  said  that 
the  expedition  with  which  these  works  were  thrown  up,  with  their 
sudden  and  unexpected  appearance,  "  recalled  to  the  mind  those  won 
derful  stories  of  enchantment  and  invisible  agency,  which  are  so  fre 
quent  in  the  eastern  romances." 

General  Howe,  like  a  gallant  commander,  immediately  determined 
on  the  perilous  attempt  to  dislodge  the  Americans  before  their  en 
trenchments  should  be  rendered  impregnable.  A  powerful  detach 
ment,  led  by  Lord  Percy,  dropped  down  to  the  castle  in  the  afternoon, 
to  rendezvous  there,  and  thence  cross  over  to  Dorchester  point,  and 
storm  the  heights.  A  heavy  gale  ("a  dreadful  storm"  it  is  called,  in 
the  British  accounts)  scattered  the  barges,  and  prevented  the  embarka 
tion  of  the  troops.  This  delay  gave  the  Americans  time  to  perfect 
their  works;  barrels  filled  with  earth  were  placed  around  the  heights,  an 
abattis  of  trees  disposed  around  the  foot  of  the  hills,  reinforcements 
of  two  thousand  men  ordered  to  the  support  of  General  Thomas,  and 
every  preparation  made  for  a  decisive  conflict. 

It  was  soon  understood  that  the  royal  commander,  not  deeming  it 
safe  to  take  the  risk  of  an  engagement,  had  determined  to  evacuate 
Boston.  To  prevent  the  destruction  of  the  town,  Washington  was 
willing  that  they  should  leave  it  unmolested.  Finding,  however,  after 
some  days,  that  no  apparent  movement  was  made  for  this  purpose, 
he  determined  without  further  delay  to  occupy  Nook  Hill  and  the 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  119 

other  elevations  fronting  and  commanding  the  town.  This  produced 
the  desired  effect,  and  General  Howe  was  at  length  compelled  to  ac 
knowledge  the  inability  of  a  powerful  land  and  naval  force,  under 
veteran  leaders,  to  maintain  themselves  against  untried  levies  whom 
they  were  accustomed  to  regard  with  contempt,  led  by  officers  from 
whom  they  affected  to  withhold  even  the  usual  titles  of  military  com 
mand.  He  was  obliged  to  acquiesce  in  an  engagement  with  the  Select 
men  of  Boston,  tacitly  sanctioned  by  "  Mr.  Washington,"  that  his  army 
should  be  allowed  to  embark  without  being  fired  upon,  on  condition 
that  they  would  not  burn  the  town. 

Thus,  on  the  seventeenth  of  March,  1776,  an  effective  force  of  many 
thousand  men  evacuated  the  town,  and  with  a  powerful  fleet  and  a 
numerous  train  of  transports,  sailed  for  Halifax.  Putnam,  with  an 
attachment  of  the  American  army,  took  possession  of  Boston.  The 
beloved  commander  himself  made  his  entry  into  the  town  the  follow 
ing  day,  and  the  first  great  act  of  the  drama  of  the  Revolution  was 
brought  to  a  triumphant  close,  on  that  old  Dorchester  Neck  which, 
before  the  ifoundation  of  Boston,  our  fathers  selected  as  a  place  for 
settlement. 

This  event  diffused  joy  throughout  the  Union,  and  contributed 
materially  to  prepare  the  public  mind  for  that  momentous  political  meas 
ure,  of  which  v^e  this  day  commemorate  the  seventy-ninth  anniversary. 
That  civil  government,  however  human  infirmities  mingle  in  its  or 
ganization,  is,  in  its  ultimate  principles,  a  Divine  ordinance,  will  be 
doubted  by  no  one  who  believes  in  an  overruling  Providence.  That 
svery  people  has  a  right  to  interpret  for  itself  the  will  of  Providence, 
In  reference  to  the  form  of  government  best  suited  to  its  condition, 
subject  to  no  external  human  responsibility,  is  equally  certain,  and  is 
ihe  doctrine  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
But  what  makes  a  people, — what  constitutes  this  august  community, 
to  which  we  give  that  name;  how  many  persons — how  few;  bound  to 
each  other  by  what  antecedent  ties  of  physical  descent,  of  common 
language,  of  local  proximity,  of  previous  political  connection  ?  This 
is  a  great  question,  to  which  no  answer,  that  I  know,  has  yet  beep 
given;  to  which,  in  general  terms,  perhaps,  none  can  be  given.  Physi 
ologists  ha/e  not  yet  found  the  seat  of  animal  life, — far  less  of  the  ra 
tional  intellect  or  spiritual  essence  of  the  individual  man.  Who  can 
wonder  that  it  should  be  still  farther  beyond  our  ability  to  define  the 
mysterious  laws  which — out  of  the  physical  instincts  of  our  nature,  the 
inexplicable  attractions  of  kindred  and  tongue,  the  persuasion  of  rea 
son,  the  social  sympathies,  the  accidents  as  we  call  them  of  birth,  the 
wanderings  of  nations  in  the  dark  deeds  of  the  past,  the  confederacies 
of  peace,  the  ravages  of  war,  employed  by  the  all-fashioning  hand  of 
time,  which  moulds  everything  human  according  to  the  eternal  types 
in  the  Divine  mind — work  out,  in  the  lapse  of  centuries,  with  more  than 
Promethean  skill,  that  wondrous  creation  which  we  call  A  People  ! 
A.  P. -5. 


1 20  AMERICAN  PA  TRIO TISM. 


THE   DECLARATION   OF   INDEPENDENCE. 
ADOPTED  BY  CONGRESS  JULY  4,  1776. 

A   DECLARATION    BY   THE  REPRESENTATIVES   OF   THE   UNITED    STATES 
OF  AMERICA,    IN    CONGRESS   ASSEMBLED. 

When,  in  the  course  of  human  events,  it  becomes  necessary  for  one 
people  to  dissolve  the  political  bands  which  have  connected  them  with 
another,  and  to  assume  among  the  powers  of  the  earth  the  separate 
and  equal  station  to  which  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  nature's  God 
entitle  them,  a  decent  respect  to  the  opinions  of  mankind  requires 
that  they  should  declare  the  causes  which  impel  them  to  the  separa 
tion. 

We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  men  are  created 
equal;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  unalienable 
rights;  that  among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness; 
that,  to  secure  these  rights,  governments  are  instituted  among  men, 
deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed;  that, 
whenever  any  form  of  government  becomes  destructive  of  these  ends, 
it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  to  abolish  it,  and  to  institute 
a  new  government,  laying  its  foundation  on  such  principles,  and 
organizing  its  powers  in  such  form  as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely 
to  effect  their  safety  and  happiness.  Prudence,  indeed,  will  dictate 
that  governments  should  not  be  changed  for  light  and  transient 
causes;  and,  accordingly,  all  experience  hath  shown  that  mankind  are 
more  dispose  I  to  suffer,  while  evils  are  sufferable,  than  to  right  them 
selves  by  abolishing  the  forms  to  which  they  are  accustomed.  But 
when  a  long  train  of  abuses  and  usurpations,  pursuing  invariably  the 
same  object,  evinces  a  design  to  reduce  them  under  absolute  despotism, 
it  is  their  right,  it  is  their  duty,  to  throw  off  such  government,  and  to 
provide  new  guards  for  their  future  security.  Such  has  been  the 
patient  sufferance  of  these  Colonies,  and  such  is  now  the  necessity 
which  constrains  them  to  alter  their  former  systems  of  government. 
The  history  of  the  present  king  of  Great  Britain  is  a  history  of  re 
peated  injuries  and  usurpations,  all  having  in  direct  object  the  estab 
lishment  of  an  absolute  tyranny  over  these  States.  To  prove  this,  let 
facts  be  submitted  to  a  candid  world: — 

He  has  refused  his  assent  to  laws  the  most  wholesome  and  neces 
sary  for  the  public  good. 

He  has  forbidden  his  governors  to  pass  laws  of  immediate  and 
pressing  importance,  unless  suspended  in  their  operation  till  his  assent 
should  be  obtained;  and,  when  so  suspended,  he  has  utterly  negle?ted 
to  attend  to  them. 

He  has  refused  to  pass"  other  laws  for  the  accommodation  of  large 


THE   DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.         12 1 

districts  of  people,  unless  those  people  would  relinquish  the  right  of 
representation  in  the  Legislature;  a  right  inestimable  to  them,  and 
formidable  to  tyrants  only. 

He  has  called  together  legislative  bodies  at  places  unusual,  uncom 
fortable,  and  distant  from  the  depository  of  their  public  records,  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  fatiguing  them  into  compliance  with  his  measures. 

He  has  dissolved  representative  houses  repeatedly,  for  opposing 
with  manly  firmness  his  invasions  on  the  rights  of  the  people. 

He  has  refused,  for  a  long  time  after  such  dissolutions,  to  cause 
others  to  be  elected;  whereby  the  legislative  powers,  incapable  of 
annihilation,  have  returned  to  the  people  at  large  for  their  exercise; 
the  State  remaining,  in  the  meantime,  exposed  to  all  the  danger 
of  invasion  from  without,  and  convulsions  within. 

He  has  endeavored  to  prevent  the  population  of  these  States  ;  for 
that  purpose,  obstructing  the  laws  for  naturalization  of  foreigners  ; 
refusing  to  pass  others  to  encourage  their  migration  hither,  and  rais 
ing  the  conditions  of  new  appropriations  of  lands. 

He  has  obstructed  the  administration  of  justice  by  refusing  his 
assent  to  laws  for  establishing  judiciary  powers. 

He  has  made  judges  dependent  on  his  T,vill  alone  for  the  tenure  of 
their  offices,  and  the  amount  and  payment  of  their  salaries. 

He  has  erected  a  multitude  of  new  offices,  and  sent  hither  swarms 
of  officers  to  harass  our  people,  and  eat  out  their  substance. 

He  has  kept  among  us,  in  times  of  peace,  standing  armies,  without 
the  consent  of  our  Legislature. 

He  has  affected  to  render  the  military  independent  of,  and  superior 
to,  the  civil  power. 

He  has  combined,  with  others,  to  subject  us  to  a  jurisdiction 
foreign  to  our  Constitution,  and  unacknowledged  by  our  laws;  giving 
his  assent  to  their  acts  of  pretended  legislation: — 

For  quartering  large  bodies  of  armed  troops  among  us; 

Fot  protecting  them,  by  a  mock  trial,  from  punishment  for  any 
murders  which  they  should  commit  on  the  inhabitants  of  these 
States  ; 

For  cutting  off  our  trade  with  all  parts  of  the  world; 

For  imposing  taxes  on  us  without  our  consent; 

For  depriving  us,  in  many  cases,  of  the  benefits  of  trial  by  jury  ; 

For  transporting  us  beyond  seas  to  be  tried  for  pretended  offences;  . 

For  abolishing  the  free  system  of  English  laws  in  a  neighboring 
Province,  establishing  therein  an  arbitrary  government,  and  enlarging 
its  boundaries,  so  as  to  render  it  at  once  an  example  and  fit  instru 
ment  for  introducing  the  same  absolute  rule  into  these  Colonies; 

For  taking  away  our  charters,  abolishing  our  most  valuable  laws, 
and  altering  fundamentally  the  powers  of  our  governments; 

For  suspending  our  own  legislatures,  and  declaring  themselves 
invested  with  power  to  legislate  for  us  in  all  cases  whatsoever; 


122  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

He  has  abdicated  government  here,  by  declaring  us  out  of  his  pro 
tection,  and  waging  war  against  us. 

He  has  plundered  our  seas,  ravaged  our  coasts,  burnt  our  towns, 
and  destroyed  the  lives  of  our  people. 

He  is,  at  this  time,  transporting  large  armies  of  foreign  mercenaries 
to  complete  the  works  of  death,  desolation,  and  tyranny,  already 
begun  with  circumstances  of  cruelty  and  perfidy  scarcely  paralleled  in 
the  most  barbarous  ages,  and  totally  unworthy  the  head  of  a  civilized 
nation. 

He  has  constrained  our  fellow  citizens  taken  captive  on  the  high 
seas  to  bear  arms  against  their  country,  to  become  the  executioners  of 
their  friends  and  brethren,  or  to  fall  themselves  by  their  hands. 

He  has  excited  domestic  insurrections  amongst  us,  and  has  endeav 
ored  to  bring  on  the  inhabitants  of  our  frontiers  the  merciless  Indian 
savages,  whose  known  rule  of  warfare  is  an  undistinguished  destruc 
tion  of  all  ages,  sexes,  and  conditions. 

In  every  stage  of  these  oppressions,  we  have  petitioned  for  redress 
in  the  most  humble  terms:  our  repeated  petitions  have  been  answered 
only  by  repeated  injury.  A  prince  whose  character  is  thus  marked  by 
every  act  which  may  define  a  tyrant  is  unfit  to  be  the  ruler  of  a  free 
people. 

Nor  have  we  been  wanting  in  attention  to  our  British  brethren. 

We  have  warned  them,  from  time  to  time,  of  attempts  made  by 
their  legislature  to  extend  an  unwarrantable  jurisdiction  over  us.  We 
have  reminded  them  of  the  circumstances  of  our  emigration  and 
settlement  here.  We  have  appealed  to  their  native  justice  and  mag 
nanimity;  and  we  have  conjured  them,  by  the  ties  of  our  common 
kindred,  to  disavow  these  usurpations,  which  would  inevitably  inter 
rupt  our  connections  and  correspondence.  They,  too,  have  been 
deaf  to  the  voice  of  justice  and  consanguinity.  We  must,  therefore, 
acquiesce  in  the  necessity  which  denounces  our  separation,  and  hold 
them,  as  we  hold  the  rest  of  mankind,  enemies  in  war;  in  peace,  friends. 

We,  therefore,  the  representatives  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
in  General  Congress  assembled,  appealing  to  the  Supreme  Judge  of 
the  world  for  the  rectitude  of  our  intentions,  do,  in  the  name  and  by 
the  authority  of  the  good  people  of  these  Colonies,  solemnly  publish 
and  declare,  that  these  United  Colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be, 
free  and  independent  States;  that  they  are  absolved  from  all  allegiance 
to  the  British  Crown,  and  that  all  political  connection  between  them 
and  the  state  of  Great  Britain  is,  and  ought  to  be,  totally  dissolved; 
and  that,  as  free  and  independent  States,  they  have  full  power  to 
levy  war,  conclude  peace,  contract  alliances,  establish  commerce,  and 
to  do  all  other  acts  and  things  which  independent  States  may  of 
right  do.  And  for  the  support  of  this  declaration,  with  a  firm  reliance 
on  the  protection  of  Divine  Providence,  we  mutually  pledge  to  each 
other  our  lives,  our  fortunes,  and  our  sacred  honor. 


THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 


123 


The  signers  to  this  declaration  were: 

JOHN    HANCOCK,  President. 
NEW  HAMPSHIRE.  James  Smith, 

Josiah  Bartlett, 
William  Whipple, 


Matthew  Thornton. 

MASSACHUSETTS  BAY. 

Samuel  Adams, 
John  Adams, 
Robert  Treat  Paine, 
Elbridge  Gerry. 

RHODE   ISLAND. 

Stephen  Hopkins, 
William  Ellery. 

CONNECTICUT. 

Roger  Sherman, 
Samuel  Huntington, 
William  Williams, 
Oliver  Wolcott. 

NEW   YORK. 

William  Floyd, 
Philip  Livingston, 
Francis  Lewis, 
Lewis  Morris. 

NEW  JERSEY. 

Richard  Stockton, 
John  Witherspoon, 
Francis  Hopkinson, 
John  Hart, 
Abraham  Clark. 

PENNSYLVANIA. 

Robert  Morris, 
Benjamin  Rush, 
Benjamin  Franklin, 
John  Morton, 
George  Clymer, 


George  Taylor, 
James  Wilson, 
George  Ross. 


DELAWARE. 

Caesar  Rodney, 
George  Reed, 
Thomas  McKean. 

MARYLAND. 

Samuel  Chase, 

William  Paca, 

Thomas  Stone, 

Charles  Carroll,  ot  Carrollton. 

VIRGINIA. 
George  Wythe, 
Richard  Henry  Lee, 
Thomas  Jefferson, 
Benjamin  Harrison, 
Thomas  Nelson,  Jr., 
Francis  Lightfoot  Lee, 
Carter  Braxton. 

NORTH   CAROLINA, 

William  Hooper, 
Joseph  Hewes, 
John  Penn. 

SOUTH   CAROLINA. 

Edward  Rutledge, 
Thomas  Hayward,  Jr., 
Thomas  Lynch,  Jr., 
Arthur  Middleton. 

GEORGIA. 
Button  Gwinnett, 
Lyman  Hall, 
George  Walton. 


124  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 


PREDICTIONS  CONCERNING  FOURTH  OF  JULY.* 

JOHN  ADAMS  TO   MRS.   ADAMS. 
Philadelphia^  July  3,  1776. 

Had  a  declarrtion  of  independence  been  made  seven  months  ago, 
it  would  have  been  attended  with  many  great  and  glorious  effects./ 
We  might,  before  this  hour,  have  formed  alliance  with  foreign  states. 
We  should  have  mastered  Quebec,  and  been  in  possession  of  Canada. 

You  will,  perhaps,  wonder  how  such  a  declaration  would  have  influ 
enced  our  affairs  in  Canada;  but,  if  I  could  write  with  freedom,  I 
could  easily  convince  you  that  it  would,  and  explain  to  you  the  manner 
how.  Many  gentlemen  in  high  stations,  and  of  great  influence,  have 
been  duped,  by  the  ministerial  bubble  of  commissioners,  to  treat;  and 
in  real,  sincere  expectation  of  this  event,  which  they  so  fondly  wished, 
they  have  been  slow  and  languid  in  promoting  measures  for  the  reduc 
tion  of  that  province.  Others  there  are  in  the  colonies,  who  really 
wished  that  our  enterprise  in  Canada  would  be  defeated;  that  the  col 
onies  might  be  brought  into  danger  and  distress  between  two  fires, 
and  be  thus  induced  to  submit.  Others  really  wished  to  defeat  the 
expedition  to  Canada,  lest  the  conquest  of  it  should  elevate  the  minds 
of  the  people  too  much  to  hearken  to  those  terms  of  reconcilation 
which  they  believed  would  be  offered  us.  These  jarring  views,  wishes, 
and  designs,  occasioned  an  opposition  to  many  salutary  measures 
which  were  proposed  for  the  support  of  that  expedition,  and  caused 
obstructions,  embarrassments,  and  studied  delays,  which  have  finally 
lost  us  the  province. 

All  these  causes,  however,  in  conjunction,  would  not  have  disap 
pointed  us,  if  it  had  not  been  for  a  misfortune  which  could  not  have 
been  foreseen,  and  perhaps  could  not  have  been  prevented — I  mean 
the  prevalence  of  the  small-pox  among  our  troops.  This  fatal  pesti 
lence  completed  our  destruction.  It  is  a  frown  of  Providence  upon 
us,  which  we  ought  to  lay  to  heart. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  delay  of  this  declaration  to  this  time  has 
many  great  advantages  attending  it.  The  hopes  of  reconciliation  which 
were  fondly  entertained  by  multitudes  of  honest  and  well  meaning, 
though  short-sighted  and  mistaken  people,  have  been  gradually,  and  at 
last  totally,  extinguished.  Time  has  been  given  for  the  whole  people 
maturely  to  consider  the  great  question  of  independence,  and  to  ripen 
their  judgment,  dissipate  their  fears,  and  allure  their  hopes,  by  discus 
sing  it  in  newspapers  and  pamphlets — by  debating  it  in  assemblies, 


*  July  2,  the  vote  was  taken  upon  the  question  of  independence,  and  nine  of  the 
colonies  voted  for  the  resolution. 


JONATHAN  MASON.  125 

conventions,  committees  of  safety  and  inspection — in  town  and  county 
meetings,  as  well  as  in  private  conversations'  so  that  the  whole  peo 
ple,  in  every  colony,  have  now  adopted  it  as  their  own  act.  This  will 
cement  the  union,  and  avoid  those  heats,  and  perhaps  convulsions, 
which  might  have  been  occasioned  by  such  a  declaration  six  months 
ago. 

But  the  day  is  past.  The  second  day  of  July,  1776,  will  be  a  mem 
orable  epocha  in  the  history  of  America.  I  am  apt  to  believe  that  it 
will  be  celebrated  by  succeeding  generations,  as  the  great  Anniversary 
Festival.  It  ought  to  be  commemorated,  as  the  day  of  deliverance 
by  solemn  acts  of  devotion  to  God  Almighty.  It  ought  to  be  solemn 
ized  with  pomp,  shews,  games,  sports,  guns,  bells,  bonfires  and  illu 
minations,  from  one  end  of  the  continent  to  the  other,  from  this  time 
forward  forever. 

You  may  think  me  transported  with  enthusiasm;  but  I  am  not.  I 
am  well  aware  of  the  toil,  and  blood,  and  treasure,  that  it  will  cost  us 
to  maintain  this  declaration,  and  support  and  defend  these  states.  Yet, 
through  all  the  gloom,  I  can  see  the  rays  of  light  and  glory;  I  can  see 
that  the  end  is  more  than  worth  all  the  means,  and  that  posterity  will 
triumph,  although  you  and  I  may  rue,  which  I  hope  we  shall  not. 

JOHN  ADAMS. 

PATRIOTISM  A  VIRTUE. 

• 

JONATHAN    MASON. 

Boston,  March  5,  1780. 

"  Devotion  to  the  public.     Glorious  flame  ! 
Celestial  ardor!  in  what  unknown  worlds 
Hast  thou  been  blessing  myriads  since  in  Rome, 
Old  virtuous  Rome,  so  many  deathless  names 
From  thee  their  lustre  drew  ?  since  taught  by  thee 
Their  poverty  put  splendor  to  the  blush, 
Pain  grew  luxurious,  and  even  death  delight." 

—  Thomson,  vol.  /.  f.  336. 

"  Unblest  by  -virtue,  government  and  league 
Becomes  a  circling  junto  of  the  great 

To  rob  by  law 

What  are  without  it  senates,  save  a  face 

Of  consultation  deep  and  reason  free, 

While  the  determined  voice  and  heart  are  cold  ? 

What  boasted  freedom,  save  a  sounding  name  ? 

And  what  election,  but  a  market  vile 

Of  slavery  self-barter'd  1"—Id.p.  3. 

MY  FRIENDS  AND  FELLOW  CITIZENS — That  the  greatness  and  pros 
perity  of  a  people  depend  upon  the  proportion  of  public  spirit  and  the 
love  of  virtue  which  is  found  to  exist  among  them,  seems  to  be  a 
maxim  established  by  the  universal  consent,  and  I  may  say,  experience 
of  all  ages. 


126  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

Man  is  formed  with  a  constitution  wonderfully  adapted  for  social 
converse  and  connection.  Scarcely  ushered  into  the  world,  but  his 
wants  teach  him  his  inability,  of  himself,  to  provide  for  them.  Wrapt 
in  astonishment,  with  an  anxiety  inexpressible,  the  solitary  existent 
looks  around  for  the  aid  of  some  friendly  neighbor,  and  should  he  per 
chance  meet  the  desired  object;  should  he  find  one,  endowed  with 
intellectual  faculties,  beset  with  the  same  wants  and  weaknesses,  and 
in  all  respects  the  very  image  of  himself;  should  he  find  him  with  a 
heart  open  to  mutual  kind  offices,  and  a  hand  stretched  out  to  bestow 
a  proportion  of  his  labor,  with  a  bosom  glowing  with  gratitude,  his 
soul  is  on  the  wing  to  express  the  sense  he  entertains  of  the  generous 
obligation. 

A  confidence  is  established  between  him  and  his  benefactor,  they 
swear  perpetual  friendship,  and  a  compact  for  mutual  protection  and 
assistance  becomes  imperceptibly  consented  to.  Thus  doubly  armed, 
together  they  pursue  their  morning  route  to  satisfy  those  demands 
only  which  nature  reminds  them  of,  and  while  the  ingenuity  of  the 
one  is  exercised  to  ensnare,  the  strength  of  the  other  is,  perhaps, 
employed  to  subdue  their  vigorous  opponent. 

Their  little  family  soon  increases;  and  as  their  social  ring  becomes 
gradually  enlarged,  their  obligations  to  each  other  are  equally  circular. 
Honest  industry  early  teaches  them,  that  a  part  only  is  sufficient  to 
provide  for  the  whole,  and  that  a  portion  of  their  time  may  be  spared 
to  cull  the  conveniences  as  well  as  appease  the  wants  of  nature. 
Property  and  personal  security  appear  to  be  among  the  first  objects  of 
their  attention,  and  acknowledged  merit  receives  the  unanimous  suf 
frage  to  preside  guardian  over  the  rights  and  privileges  of  their  infant 
society.  The  advantages  derived  are  in  a  moment  experienced. 
Their  little  policy,  erected  upon  the  broad  basis  of  equality,  they  know 
of  no  superiority  but  that  which  virtue  and  the  love  of  the  whole  de 
mands;  and  while,  with  cheerfulness,  they  entrust  to  his  care  a  certain 
part  of  their  natural  rights,  to  secure  the  remainder,  the  agreement  is 
mutual,  and  the  obligation  upon  his  part  equally  solemn  and  binding 
to  resign  them  back  either  at  the  instance  and  request  of  their  sover 
eign  pleasure,  or  whensoever  the  end  should  be  perverted  for  which 
he  received  them. 

Integrity  of  heart,  benevolence  of  disposition,  the  love  of  freedom 
and  public  spirit,  are  conspicuous  excellencies  in  this  select  neighbor 
hood.  Lawless  ambition  is  without  a  friend,  and  the  insinuating  pro 
fessional  pleas  of  tyrants,  ever  accompanied  by  the  magnificence  and 
splendor  of  luxury,  are  unheard  of  among  them;  but  simple  in  their 
manners,  and  honest  in  their  intentions,  their  regulations  are  but  few 
and  those  expressive,  and  without  the  aid  of  extreme  refinement,  by  a 
universal  adherence  to  the  spirit  of  their  constitution,  and  to  those 
glorious  principles  from  which  that  spirit  originated,  we  find  them  at 
taining  real  glory — we  find  them  crowned  with  every  blessing  that 


JONATHAN  MASON.  127 

human  nature  hath  ever  known  of — we  find  them  in  the  possession 
of  that  summit  of  solid  happiness  that  universal  depravity  will  ad 
mit  of. 

Patriotism  is  essential  to  the  preservation  and  well  being  of  every 
free  government.  To  love  one's  country  has  ever  been  esteemed 
honorable;  and  under  the  influence  of  this  noble  passion,  every  sociaJ 
virtue  is  cultivated,  freedom  prevails  through  the  whole,  and  the  pub 
lic  good  is  the  object  of  every  one's  concern.  A  constitution,  built 
upon  such  principles,  and  put  in  execution  by  men  possessed  with  the 
love  of  virtue  and  their  fellow-men,  must  always  ensure  happiness  to 
its  members  The  industry  of  the  citizen  will  receive  encouragement, 
and  magnanimity,  heroism  and  benevolence  will  be  esteemed  the  ad 
mired  qualifications  of  the  age.  Every,  the  least  invasion  on  the  pub 
lic  liberty,  is  considered  as  an  infringement  on  that  of  the  subject;  and 
feeling  himself  roused  at  the  appearance  of  oppression,  with  a  divine 
enthusiasm,  he  flies  to  obey  the  summons  of  his  country,  and  does  she 
but  request,  with  zeal  he  resigns  the  life  of  the  individual  for  the  pres 
ervation  of  the  whole. 

Without  some  portion  of  this  generous  principle,  anarchy  and  con 
fusion  would  immediately  ensue,  the  jarring  interests  of  individuals, 
regarding  themselves  only,  and  indifferent  to  the  welfare  of  others, 
would  still  further  heighten  the  distressing  scene,  and  with  the  assist 
ance  of  the  selfish  passions,  it  would  end  in  the  ruin  and  subversion  of 
the  state.  But  where  patriotism  is  the  leading  principle,  unanimity  is 
conspicuous  in  public  and  private  councils.  The  constitution  receives 
for  its  stability  the  united  efforts  of  every  individual,  and  revered  for 
its  justice,  admired  for  its  principle,  and  formidable  for  its  strength, 
its  fame  reaches  to  the  skies. 

Should  we  look  into  the  history  of  the  ancient  republics,  we  shall 
find  them  a  striking  example  of  what  I  have  asserted,  and  in  no  part 
of  their  progress  to  greatness,  producing  so  many  illustrious  actions, 
and  advancing  so  rapidly  in  the  road  to  glory,  as  when  actuated  by 
public  spirit  and  the  love  of  their  country.  The  Greeks  in  particular 
ever  held  such  sentiments  as  these  in  the  highest  veneration,  and  with 
such  sentiments  as  these  al»ne  they  established  their  freedom,  and 
finally  conquered  the  innumerable  armies  of  the  east. 

When  Xerxes,  the  ambitious  prince  of  Persia,  vainly  thinking  that 
nature  and  the  very  elements  were  subject  to  his  control,  inflamed 
with  the  thoughts  of  conquest,  threatening  the  seas,  should  they  resist, 
with  his  displeasure,  and  the  mountains,  should  they  oppose  his  pro 
gress;  when,  after  having  collected  the  armies  of  the  then  known  world 
under  his  banners,  he  entered  the  bowels  of  Greece,  leading  forth  his 
millions,  resolutely  bent  upon  the  destruction  and  extirpation  of  this 
small  but  free  people,  what  do  we  perceive  to  be  their  conduct  upon  so 
alarming  an  occasion?  do  they  tamely  submit  without  a  struggle?  do 
they  abandon  the  property,  their  liberties,  and  their  country,  to  the 


128  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

fury  of  these  merciless  invaders?  do  they  meanly  supplicate  the  favor, 
or  intreat  the  humanity  of  this  haughty  prince?  no!  sensible  of  the 
justice  of  their  cause,  and  that  valor  is  oftentimes  superior  to  num 
bers;  undaunted  by  the  appearance  of  this  innumerable  host,  and  fired 
with  the  glorious  zeal,  they,  with  one  voice,  resolve  to  establish  their 
liberties,  or  perish  in  the  attempt. 

View  them  at  the  moment  when  the  armies  of  their  enemies,  like  an 
inundation,  overspread  their  whole  Grecian  territory;  when  oppres 
sion  seemed  as  though  collecting  its  mighty  force,  and  liberty  lay 
fettered  at  the  shrine  of  ambition,  then  shone  forth  the  heavenly  prin 
ciple,  then  flamed  the  spirit  of  the  patriot,  and,  laying  aside  all  senti 
ments  of  jealousy,  as  though  favored  with  the  prophetic  wisdom  of 
heaven,  with  bravery  unexampled,  they  charge  their  foe,  and,  fighting 
in  defence  of  their  country,  success  crowns  virtuous  attempt.  With 
three  hundred  Lacedemonians,  one  only  of  whom  was  left  to  tell  the 
fate  of  these  intrepid  men  to  their  weeping  country,  they  conquered 
the  combined  force  of  the  whole  eastern  world. 

The  privileges  and  immunities  of  the  states  of  Holland,  after  a  con 
test  of  forty  years,  in  which  they  withstood  the  exertions  of  their 
powerful  neighbors,  being  established  by  the  force  of  this  single  prin 
ciple,  which  appears  to  prevail  both  in  the  senate  and  the  field,  might 
also  be  adduced  in  support  of  what  I  have  advanced;  but,  my  fellow- 
countrymen,  we  cannot  want  additional  proofs;  the  living  history  of 
our  own  times,  will  carry  conviction  to  the  latest  posterity,  that  no 
state,  that  no  community,  I  may  say  that  no  family,  nay,  even  that  no 
individual,  can  possibly  flourish  and  be  happy  without  some  portion 
of  this  sacred  fire.  It  was  this  that  raised  America  from  being  the 
haunt  of  the  savage  and  the  dwelling-place  of  the  beast,  to  her  present 
state  of  civilization  and  opulence:  it  was  this  that  hath  supported  her 
under  the  severest  trials:  it  was  this  that  taught  her  sons  to  fight,  to 
conquer,  and  to  die,  in  support  of  freedom  and  its  blessings;  and 
what  is  it,  but  this  ardent  love  of  liberty,  that  has  induced  you,  my 
fellow-citizens,  to  attend,  on  this  solemn  occasion,  again  to  encourage 
the  streams  of  sensibility,  and  to  listen,  with  so  much  attention  and 
candor,  to  one  of  the  youngest  of  your  fellow-citizens,  whose  youth 
and  inability  plead  powerfully  against  him,  while  the  annual  tribute  is 
paid  to  the  memory  of  those  departed  citizens  who  fell  the  first  sacri 
fices  to  arbitrary  power.  Check  not  such  generous  feelings.  They 
are  the  fruits  of  virtue  and  humanity,  and,  while  the  obligations  you 
remain  under  to  those  unhappy  men  lead  you  to  shed  the  sympathetic 
tear,  to  dwell  with  pleasure  upon  their  memories,  and  execrate  the 
causes  of  their  death,  remember  that  you  can  never  repay  them. 
Ever  bear  it  in  your  minds  that,  so  implicit  was  the  confidence  you 
willingly  placed  in  that  country  that  owed  to  you  her  affection,  that, 
notwithstanding  the  introduction  of  that  inhuman  weapon  of  tyrants 
into  the  very  heart  of  your  peaceful  villages,  you  still  would  fain  rely 


JONATHAN  MASON.  129 

on  their  deceitful  assertions,  and  paint  the  deformed  monster  to  youi 
imaginations  as  the  minister  of  peace  and  protection.  Men,  born  in 
the  bosom  of  liberty,  in  the  exercise  of  the  social  affections  in  their 
full  vigor,  having  once  fixed  them  upon  particular  objects,  they  are 
not  hastily  eradicated.  Unaccustomed  to  sport  with,  and  wantonly 
sacrifice  these  sensible  overflowings  of  the  heart,  to  run  the  career  of 
nassion  and  blinded  lust,  to  be  familiar  with  vice,  and  sneer  at  virtue, 
10  surprise  innocence  by  deceitful  cunning  and  assume  the  shape  of 
friendship  to  conceal  the  greater  enmity,  you  could  not  at  once  realize 
the  fixed,  the  deliberate  intention  of  those  from  whom  you  expected 
freedom,  to  load  you  with  slavery  and  chains,  and  not  till  insult  re 
peated  upon  insult;  not  till  oppression  stalked  at  noon-day  through 
every  avenue  in  your  cities;  nay,  not  till  the  blood  of  your  peaceful 
brethren  flowed  through  your  streets,  was  the  envenomed  serpent  to 
be  discovered  in  the  bushes;  not  till  a  general  trespass  had  been  made 
upon  the  keenest  feelings  of  human  nature,  and  the  widowed  mother 
was  summoned  to  entomb  the  cold  remains  of  her  affectionate  son; 
the  virtuous  bosom  to  resign  its  tender  partner,  and  social  circles 
their  nearest  friends,  could  you  possibly  convince  yourselves  that  you 
and  Britain  were  to  be  friends  no  more.  Thrice  happy  day!  the  con 
sequences  of  which  have  taught  the  sons  of  America  that  a  proper 
exercise  of  public  spirit  and  the  love  of  virtue  hath  been  able  to  sur 
prise  and  baffle  the  most  formidable  and  most  powerful  tyranny  on 
earth. 

Patriotism  is  a  virtue  which  will  ever  be  universally  admired,  even 
by  those  incapable  of  possessing  it.  Its  happy  effects  are  equally 
visible  in  individuals  as  in  states,  and  if  we  bestow  a  moment's  reflec 
tion  upon  the  heroes  of  antiquity,  who  have  been  deservedly  cele 
brated  by  succeeding  generations,  both  for  their  abilities  and  conduct, 
we  shall  find  that  the  true  source  of  their  greatness  was  this  spirit  of 
freedom,  and  their  inviolable  attachment  to  the  interest  of  their  coun 
try. 

With  an  attentive  silence  we  listen  to  the  historian  while  he  relates 
to  us  the  integrity  of  conduct,  the  invincible  courage,  the  earnest  glow 
of  soul,  and  the  ardent  love  of  liberty  which  was  exhibited  in  the  lives 
of  those  illustrious  men,  and  so  great  were  their  virtues  that  we  are 
scarce  able  to  credit  them,  but  as  the  dreams  of  fancy,  or  the  fictions 
of  the  ingenious. 

It  is  recorded  of  the  celebrated  Timolean,  general  of  Corinth, 
that  notwithstanding  he  was  blest  with  a  temper  singularly  humane, 
and  with  feelings  that  were  ever  roused  at  the  miseries  of  his  fellow- 
men,  he  loved  his  country  so  passionately,  that  after  making  use  of 
every  argument  in  his  power  to  convince  an  elder  brother  of  his  error, 
for  attempting  to  become  the  tyrant  of  it,  he  devoted  him  to  death  ;  a 
brother  on  whom  he  had  previous^  placed  his  affection,  and  whose 
life  being  exposed  to  the  fire  of  the  enemy  in  a  severe  battle,  he  had 


130  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

before  saved  at  the  great  risk  of  his  own.  Even  in  old  age,  after  a 
period  of  rigid  retirement  for  twenty  years,  we  are  attracted  by  the 
disinterested  conduct  of  this  exalted  patriot. 

When  the  Syracusians,  groaning  under  every  species  of  cruelty, 
which  lust,  avarice,  and  ambition  could  inflict,  supplicated  their  gen 
erous  neighbors  for  assistance  to  alleviate  those  miseries  they  them 
selves  had  been  exposed  to,  Timolean,  urged  to  accept  the  command 
of  the  Corinthian  auxiliaries,  at  first  hesitated,  his  age,  his  manners, 
his  private  happiness  and  the  endearments  of  his  family  forbade  it; 
but  sensible  that  he  was  but  a  member  of  the  community,  and  stung 
by  the  cries  of  innocence,  his  inclinations  were  of  but  trivial  moment 
in  competition  with  his  duty. 

View  him  at  the  head  of  his  chosen  army,  assembled  to  plead  the 
cause  of  suffering  virtue.  In  possession  of  arms  and  of  power,  if 
inclined  to  pervert  them,  are  his  principles  changed  with  his  station? 
are  his  thoughts  bent  on  conquest  or  on  death  ?  or  does  he  entertain  a 
secret  wish  to  seize  the  moment  of  confidence,  or  build  his  greatness 
upon  the  ruins  of  the  distressed,  or  to  remove  one  tyrant  to  reinstate 
another  ?  no  !  but  fired  with  a  generous  glow  of  soul,  fired  with  the 
manly  sentiments  of  freedom,  with  an  implacable  hatred  to  oppression 
of  all  kinds,  he  marches  his  troops  to  the  deliverance  of  his  afflicted 
people,  and  with  a  firmness  becoming  soldiers  fighting  under  the 
standard  of  liberty,  after  a  series  of  fatigue  and  toil,  harassing  marches 
and  fierce  conflicts,  he  dethrones  the  tyrant,  and  is  proclaimed  the 
deliverer  of  Syracuse.  Having  restored  tranquillity  to  this  unhappy 
country,  repeopled  their  cities,  revived  their  laws,  and  dispensed 
justice  to  all  ranks  and  classes,  he  resigned  his  command,  and  re 
treated  once  again  to  the  private  walks  of  life,  accompanied  with  the 
grateful  acknowledgments  of  millions,  as  the  patron  of  their  liberty 
and  the  saviour  of  their  country.  Happy  man!  endowed  with  such  a 
noble  soul,  prone  to  feel  for  the  misfortunes,  and  rejoice  in  the 
happiness  of  his  fellow-creatures. 

But  why  need  we  resort  to  distant  ages  to  furnish  us  with  instance? 
of  the  effects  of  patriotism  upon  individuals  ?  will  not  the  present  day 
afford  at  least  one  illustrious  example  to  our  purpose  ?  yes,  my  fellow- 
countrymen,  America,  young  America  too,  can  boast  her  patriots  and 
heroes,  men  who  have  saved  their  country  by  their  virtues,  whose 
characters  posterity  will  admire,  aud  with  a  pleased  attention,  listen 
on  tiptoe  to  the  story  of  their  glorious  exertions.  Let  us  pause  a  mo 
ment  only  upon  the  select  catalogue,  and  take  the  first  upon  the  list. 

View  him  in  his  private  station,  and  here,  as  though  Providence  foi 
his  excellencies  had  selected  him  for  her  own  from  the  extensive  circle 
of  humanity,  we  perceive  him  enjoying  her  richest  dispensations.  By 
an  affluent  fortune,  placed  beyond  the  reach  of  poverty  or  depend 
ence,  blessed  with  the  social  circle  of  friends,  and  happily  connected 


JONATHAN  MASON.  131 

by  yet  more  endearing  ties,  peaceful  reflections  are  his  companions 
through  the  day,  and  the  soothing  slumbers  of  innocence  hover  over 
his  couch;  charity  presides  steward  of  his  household,  and  the  distress 
ed  are  ever  sure  to  receive  from  his  bosom  that  sigh  which  never  fails 
to  console,  and  from  his  cheek  the  alleviating  tear  of  sympathy.  Hav 
ing  reached  the  summit  of  human  felicity,  beyond  even  the  picture  of 
his  most  sanguine  expectations,  it  is  indifferent  to  him,  as  an  individu 
al,  whether  prince  or  people  rule  the  state,  but  nurtured  in  the  bosom 
of  freedom,  endowed  with  a  greatness  of  soul,  swallowed  up  with 
public  spirit  and  the  love  of  mankind,  does  oppression  scatter  her 
baleful  prejudices,  does  ambition  rear  its  guilty  crest,  friends,  rela 
tions  and  fortunes  are  like  the  dust  of  the  balance.  The  pleas 
of  nature  give  way  to  those  of  his  country,  and  urged  on  by  heav 
enly  motives,  he  flies  instantly  to  her  relief.  See  him,  while  grief  dis 
tracts  his  bosom  at  the  effusion  of  human  blood,  grasp  the  sword  of 
justice  and  buckle  on  the  harness  of  the  warrior.  See  him,  with  forti 
tude  unparalleled,  with  perseverance  indefatigable,  deaf  to  pleasure 
and  despising  corruption,  cheerfully  encountering  the  severest  tasks 
of  duty,  and  the  hardest  toils  of  a  military  life.  Modest  in  prosperity 
and  shining  like  a  meteor  in  adversity,  we  behold  this  patriotic  hero, 
Avith  a  small  army  of  determined  freemen,  attacking  fighting,  and  con 
quering  an  army  composed  of  the  bravest  veteran  troops  of  Britain. 

And  shall  we,  my  countrymen,  stop  the  current  of  gratitude?  and 
can  we  forbear  testifying  our  joy  upon  the  success  of  such  singular  ex 
ertions  ?  shall  we  seal  his  death  before  we  thank  him  for  his  services  ? 
by  no  means.  Our  acknowledgments  will  irresistibly  flow  from  us  to 
this  deserved  object  of  admiration,  and  his  very  actions  will  sting  the 
soul  of  the  ungrateful  wretch,  until  he  is  forced  to  admire  their  lustre, 
and  confess  his  inability  to  equal  them. 

Some  there  are  who,  Roman-like,  would  banish  him  for  his  good 
conduct;  but  while  we  copy  the  spirit  of  this  great  people,  let  us  not 
be  as  diligent  to  catch  their  vices.  Such  conduct  is  inconsistent  with 
the  sentiments  of  freemen,  and  surely  we  cannot  forget  that  he  has 
saved  our  country. 

Rewards  and  punishments  are  in  the  hands  of  the  public,  and  it  is 
equally  consistent  with  .generosity  and  humanity  to  bestow  the  one, 
as  inflict  the  other.  We  cannot  be  too  cautious  in  the  objects  of  our 
gratitude;  let  merit,  conspicuous  merit,  be  the  standard  to  which  our 
praises  shall  resort,  and  it  will  excite  a  noble  emulation  in  others,  and 
let  us  rather  forbear  that  respect,  which  is  too  often  found  attendant 
upon  the  rich,  though  their  wealth  has  been  amassed  with  the  ruin  of 
their  country. 

But  the  praises  of  us  are  not  the  patriot's  only  reward:  with  an  ap 
proving  conscience  sweetening  the  declivity  of  life,  his  invitation  is  to 
the  skies,  there  to  receive  a  far  more  precious  reward,  for  the  estab- 


132  AM  ERIC  AX  PATRIOTISM. 

lishment  of  that  principle  to  which,  since  the  origin  of  mankind,  heaven 
hath  paid  an  immediate  attention. 

"  Where  the  brave  youth  with  love  of  glory  fired, 
Who  greatly  in  his  country's  cause  expired, 
Shall  know  he  conquered.     The  firm  patriot  there, 
Who  made  the  welfare  of  mankind  his  care, 
Though  still  by  faction,  vice,  and  fortune  crost, 
Shall  find  his  generous  labor  was  not  lost." — Cato. 

Such  is  the  progress  of  public  spirit  and  the  love  of  virtue,  and  it  is 
the  only  pillar  upon  which  can  safely  be  erected  the  happiness  of  man 
kind.  Without  some  play  of  the  social  affections  in  every  society, 
without  some  barrier  to  oppose  the  stormy  passions  of  individuals, 
without  some  general  attachment  to  the  public  welfare,  a  door  is  open 
to  ambition  and  political  corruption;  luxury  and  selfishness  become 
fashionable  vices,  and  the  spirit  of  the  government  is  perverted;  the 
public  good  is  neglected,  the  riches  of  the  state  insecure,  the  liberty  of 
the  subject  slighted,  and  the  attempt  of  the  tyrant  made  successful  by 
the  follies  of  the  people. 

What  but  the  want  of  patriotism,  that  hath  buried  in  ruins  the 
mighty  empires  of  Greece  and  Rome,  that  standing  armies,  the  scourge 
of  the  innocent,  prevail  throughout  all  Europe,  that  the  pages  of  his 
tory  present  to  our  view  so  melancholy  a  picture  of  the  human  species, 
and  that  America  and  Britain  are  not  at  this  day  running  the  road  to 
greatness  and  glory  in  concert;  and  what  is  it  but  the  want  of  patriot 
ism  that  could  induce  that  haughty  nation,  divested  of  every  public 
virtue,  of  every  bosom  feeling,  of  every  pretension  to  humanity,  with 
out  apology  or  pretext,  to"  dsher  a  standing  army,  composed  of  va 
grants,  criminals,  and  mercenaries,  into  our  peaceful  country. 

O  my  countrymen,  it  is  the  want  of  patriotism  that  we  are  at  this 
time  called  to  weep  over  the  wanton  massacre  of  innocent  men;  that 
this  is  not  the  only  house  of  mourning;  that  the  fields  of  America  have 
become  devoted  to  war,  and  scenes  of  slaughter  familiar  to  her  sons; 
that  our  oppressors  yet  persist  in  their  destructive  system  of  tyranny, 
and  if  their  power  was  equal  to  their  thirst  of  blood,  with  the  spirit  of 
ambition  by  which  they  are  now  directed,  would  lead  them  to  destVoy 
and»extirpate  the  whole  human  race.  But  thanks  be  to  heaven,  that 
by  the  force  of  those  virtues  which  they  have  discarded,  we  have  nobly 
resisted  the  attempts  of  these  cruel  men,  and  the  miseries  they  have  so 
profusely  dealt  out  to  us,  are  returning,  with  additional  vengeance, 
upon  their  own  heads.  The  danger  of  the  issue  is  now  past,  and  if 
we  but  retain  the  same  patriotic  ardor,  with  which  we  first  defended 
our  rights  from  the  grasp  of  our  enemies,  they  are  every  day  in  our 
power.  We  have  everything  to  hope;  they  on  the  other  hand  have 
everything  to  fear.-  Youth,  vigor,  and  the  invincible  arm  of  justice, 
are  on  our  side:  The  genius  of  liberty  also  is  our  advocate,  who, 
though  persecuted,  hath  never  been  conquered. 


JONATHAN  MASON.  133 

In  our  day  we  are  called  to  see  a  happy  country  laid  waste  at  the 
shrine  of  ambition;  to>  experience  those  scenes  of  distress  which  his 
tory  is  filled  with:  but  experience  rivets  fts  lessons  upon  the  mind,  and 
if  we  resolve  with  deliberation,  and  execute  with  vigor,  we  may  yet  be 
a  free  and  flourishing  people.  Repine  not  too  much  at  the  ravages  of 
war,  nor  murmur  at  the  dispensations  of  Providence.  We  oftentimes 
rate  our  blessings  in  proportion  to  the  difficulty  in  attaining  them,  and 
if,  without  a  struggle,  we  had  secured  our  liberties,  perhaps  we  should 
have  been  less  sensible  of  their  value.  Chastisements  in  youth  are 
not  without  their  advantages;  blessings  most  commonly  spring  from 
them  in  old  age.  They  lead  us  to  reflect  seriously  in  the  hour  of  re 
tirement,  and  to  cherish  thpse  qualifications  which  are  frequently  lost 
in  the  glare  of  prosperity. 

The  important  prophecy  is  nearly  accomplished-  The  rising  glory 
of  this  western  hemisphere  is  already  announced,  and  she  is  summoned 
to  her  seat  among  the  nations.  We  have  publicly  declared  ourselves 
convinced  of  the  destructive  tendency  of  standing  armies:  we  have  ac 
knowledged  the  necessity  of  public  spirit  and  the  love  of  virtue  to  the 
happiness  of  any  people,  and  we  profess  to  be  sensible  of  the  great 
blessings  that  flow  from  them.  Let  us  not  then  act  unworthy  of  the 
reputable  character  we  now  sustain:  like  the  nation  we  have  aban 
doned,  be  content  with  freedom  in  form  and  tyranny  in  substance, 
profess  virtue  and  practice  vice,  and  convince  an  attentive  world  that 
in  this  glorious  struggle  for  our  lives  and  properties,  the  only  men  ca 
pable  of  prizing  such  exalted  privileges,  were  an  illustrious  set  of 
heroes,  who  have  sealed  their  principles  with  their  blood.  Dwell,  my 
fellow-citizens,  upon  the  present  situation  of  your  country.  Remem 
ber  that  though  our  enemies  have  dispensed  with  the  hopes  of  conquer 
ing,  our  land  is  not  entirely  freed  of  them,  and  should  our  resistance 
prove  unsuccessful  by  our  cvvn  inattention  and  inactivity,  dealh  will  be 
far  preferable  to  the  yoke  of  bondage. 

Let  us  therefore  be  still  vigilent  over  our  enemies — instil  into  our 
armies  the  righteous  cause  they  protect  and  support,  and  let  not  the 
soldier  and  citizen  be  distinct  characters  among  us.  By  our  conduct 
let  us  convince  them,  that  it  is  for  the  preservation  of  themselves  and 
their  country  they  are  now  fighting;  that  they,  equally  with  us,  are  in 
terested  in  the  event,  and  abandon  them  not  to  the  insatiable  rapacity 
of  the  greedy  executioner. 

As  a  reward  for  our  exertions  in  the  great  cause  of  freedom,  we  are 
now  in  the  possession  of  those  rights  and  privileges  attendant  upon 
the  original  state  of  nature,  with  the  opportunity  of  establishing  a 
government  for  ourselves,  independent  of  any  nation  or  any  people 
upon  the  earth.  We  have  the  experience  of  ages  to  copy  from,  advan 
tages  that  have  been  denied  to  any  that  have  gone  before  us.  Let  us 
then,  my  fellow-citizens,  learn  to  value  the  blessing.  Let  integrity  of 
heart,  the  spirit  of  freedom  and  rigid  virtue  be  seen  to  actuate  every 


134  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

member  of  the  commonwealth.  Let  not  party  rage,  private  animosi 
ties,  or  self  interested  motives,  succeed  that  religious  attachment  to 
the  public  weal  which  has  brought  us  successfully  thus  far;  for  vain 
are  all  the  boasted  charms  of  liberty  if  her  greatest  votaries  are  guided 
by  such  base  passions.  The  trial  of  our  patriotism  is  yet  before  us, 
and  we  have  reason  to  thank  heaven  that  its  principles  are  so  well 
known  and  diffused.  Exercise  towards  each  other  the  benevolent  feel 
ings  of  friendship,  and  let  that  unity  of  sentiment,  which  has  shone 
in  the  field,  be  equally  animating  in  our  councils. 

Remember  that  prosperity  is  dangerous:  that  though  successful,  we 
are  not  infallible:  that  like  the  rest  of  mankind  we  are  capable  of 
erring.  The  line  of  our  happiness  may  be  traced  with  exactness,  and 
still  there  may  be  a  difficulty  in  pursuing  it.  Let  us  not  forget  that 
our  enemies  have  other  arts  in  store  for  our  destruction;  that  they  are 
tempting  us  into  those  snares  which,  after  successful  struggles,  proved 
the  ruin  of  the  empires  of  the  east;  and  let  this  sacred  maxim  receive 
the  deepest  impression  upon  our  minds,  that  if  avarice,  if  extortion,  if 
luxury  and  political  corruption,  are  suffered  to  become  popular  among 
us,  civil  discord  and  the  ruin  of  our  country  will  be  the  speedy  conse 
quence  of  such  fatal  vices;  but  while  patriotism  is  the  leading  princi 
ple,  and  our  laws  are  contrived  with  wisdom,  and  executed  with  vigor, 
while  industry,  frugality  and  temperance  are  held  in  estimation,  and 
we  depend  upon  public  spirit  and  the  love  of  virtue  for  our  social  hap 
piness,  peace  and  affluence  will  throw  their  smiles  upon  the  brow  of  the 
individual,  our  commonwealth  will  flourish,  our  land  become  the  land 
of  liberty,  and  America  an  asylum  for  the  oppressed. 


LETTER  TO  THE  GOVERNORS. 
GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 

Newburgh,  N.  Y.,  June   18,  1783. 

SIR — The  object  for  which  I  had  the  honor  to  hold  an  appointment 
in  the  service  of  my  country,  being  accomplished,  I  am  now  preparing 
to  resign  it  into  the  hands  of  Congress,  and  return  to  that  domestic  re 
tirement,  which,  it  is  well  known,  I  left  with  the  greatest  reluctance; 
a  retirement  for  which  I  have  never  ceased  to  sigh  through  a  long  and 
painful  absence,  in  which  (remote  from  the  noise  and  trouble  of  the 
world),  I  meditate  to  pass  the  remainder  of  life,  in  a  state  of  undis 
turbed  repose;  but,  before  I  carry  this  resolution  into  effect,  I  think  it 
a  duty  incumbent  on  me  to  make  this  my  last  official  communication, 
to  congratulate  you  on  the  glorious  events  which  heaven  has  been 
pleased  to  produce  in  our  favor;  to  offer  my  sentiments  respecting 
some  important  subjects,  which  appear  to  me  to  be  intimately  con 
nected  with  the  tranquillity  of  the  United  States;  to  take  my  leave  cf 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON.  135 

your  excellency  as  a  public  character;  and  to  give  my  final  blessing  to 
that  country,  in  whose  service  I  have  spent  the  prime  of  my  life,  for 
whose  sake  I  have  consumed  so  many  anxious  days  and  watchful 
nights,  and  whose  happiness,  being  extremely  dear  to  me,  will  always 
constitute  no  inconsiderable  part  of  my  own. 

Impressed  with  the  liveliest  sensibility  on  this  pleasing  occasion,  I 
will  claim  the  indulgence  of  dilating  the  more  copiously  on  the  subject 
of  our  mutual  felicitation.  When  we  consider  the  magnitude  of  the 
prize  we  contended  for,  the  doubtful  nature  of  the  contest  and  the  fa 
vorable  manner  in  which  it  has  terminated,  we  shall  find  the  greatest 
possible  reason  for  gratitude  and  rejoicing.  This  is  a  theme  that  will 
afford  infinite  delight  to  every  benevolent  and  liberal  mind;  whether 
the  event  in  contemplation  be  considered  as  a  source  of  present  enjoy 
ment,  or  the  parent  of  future  happiness;  and  we  shall  have  equal  oc 
casion  to  felicitate  ourselves  on  the  lot  which  Providence  has  assigned 
us,  whether  we  view  it  in  a  natural,  a  political,  or  moral  point  of  light. 

The  citizens  of  America,  placed  in  the  most  enviable  condition,  as  the 
sole  lords  and  proprietors  of  a  vast  tract  of  continent,  comprehending 
all  the  various  soils  and  climates  of  the  world,  and  abounding  with  all 
the  necessaries  and  conveniences  of  life,  are  now,  by  the  late  satisfac 
tory  pacification,  acknowledged  to  be  possessed  of  absolute  freedom  and 
independency:  they  are  from  this  period  to  be  considered  as  the  actors 
on  a  most  conspicuous  theatre,  which  seems  to  be  peculiarly  designed 
by  Providence  for  the  display  of  human  greatness  and  felicity.  Here 
they  are  not  only  surrounded  with  every  thing  that  can  contribute  to 
the  completion  of  private  and  domestic  enjoyment,  but  heaven  has 
crowned  all  its  other  blessings,  by  giving  a  surer  opportunity  for  politi 
cal  happiness,  than  any  other  nation  has  ever  been  favored  with. 
Nothing  can  illustrate  these  observations  more  forcibly  than  a  recol 
lection  of  the  happy  conjuncture  of  times  and  circumstances,  under 
which  our  republic  assumed  its  rank  among  the  nations.  The  founda 
tion  of  our  empire  was  not  laid  in  a  gloomy  age  of  ignorance  and  su 
perstition,  but  at  an  epocha  when  the  rights  of  mankind  were  better 
understood  and  more  clearly  defined,  than  at  any  former  period.  Re 
searches  of  the  human  mind  after  social  happiness  have  been  carried 
to  a  great  extent;  the  treasures  of  knowledge  acquired  by  the  labors  of 
philosophers,  sages,  and  legislators,  through  a  long  succession  of  years 
are  laid  open  for  us,  and  their  collected  wisdom  may  be  happily  ap 
plied  in  the  establishment  of  our  forms  of  government.  The  free  cul 
tivation  of  letters,  the  unbounded  extension  of  commerce,  the  progres 
sive  refinement  of  manners,  the  growing  liberality  of  sentiment,  and, 
above  all,  the  pure  and  benign  light  of  revelation,  have  had  a  meliora 
ting  influence  on  mankind,  and  increased  the  blessings  of  society.  At 
this  auspicious  period,  the  United  States  came  into  existence  as  a  na 
tion;  and  if  their  citizens  should  not  be  completely  free  and  happy, 
the  fault  will  be  entirely  their  own. 


136  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

Such  is  our  situation,  and  such  are  our  prospects.  But  notwith 
standing  the  cup  of  blessing  is  thus  reached  out  to  us;  notwithstanding 
happiness  is  ours,  if  we  have  a  disposition  to  seize  the  occasion,  and 
make  it  our  own,  yet  it  appears  to  me  there  is  an  option  still  left  to 
the  United  States  of  America,  whether  they  will  be  respectable  and 
prosperous,  or  contemptible  and  miserable  as  a  nation.  This  is  the 
time  of  their  political  probation:  this  is  the  moment  when  the  eyes  of 
the  whole  world  are  turned  upon  them:  this  is  the  time  to  establish  or 
ruin  their  national  character  forever:  this  is  the  favorable  moment  to 
give  such  r.  tone  to  the  federal  government,  as  will  enable  it  to  answer 
the  ends  of  its  institution:  or,  this  may  be  the  ill-fated  moment  for  re 
laxing  the  powers  of  the  union,  annihilating  the  cement  of  the  confed 
eration,  and  exposing  us  to  become  the  sport  of  European  politics, 
which  may  play  one  state  against  another,  to  prevent  their  growing 
importance,  and  to  serve  their  own  interested  purposes.  For,  accord 
ing  to  the  system  of  policy  the  states  shall  adopt  at  this  moment,  they 
will  stand  or  fall;  and  by  their  confirmation  or  lapse,  it  is  yet  to  be  de 
cided,  whether  the  revolution  must  ultimately  be  considered  as  a  bless 
ing  or  a  curse,  not  to  the  present  age  alone,  for  with  our  fate  will  the 
destiny  of  unborn  millions  be  involved. 

With  this  conviction  of  the  importance  of  the  present  crisis,  silence 
in  me  would  be  a  crime;  I  will  therefore  speak  to  your  excellency  the 
language  of  freedom  and  sincerity,  without  disguise.  I  am  aware, 
however,  those  who  differ  from  me  in  political  sentiments  may,  per 
haps,  remark,  I  am  stepping  out  of  the  proper  line  of  my  duty;  and 
they  may  probably  ascribe  to  arrogance  or  ostentation,  what  I  know  is 
alone  the  result  of  the  purest  intention.  But  the  rectitude  of  my  own 
heart,  which  disdains  such  unworthy  motives;  the  part  I  have  hitherto 
acted  in  life;  the  determination  I  have  formed  of  not  taking  any  share 
in  public  business  hereafter,  the  ardent  desire  I  feel,  and  shall  continue 
to  manifest,  of  quietly  enjoying  in  private  life,  after  all  the  toils  of  war, 
the  benefits  of  a  wise  and  liberal  government,  will,  I  flatter  myself, 
sooner  or  later,  convince  my  country,  that  I  could  have  no  sinister 
views  in  delivering,  with  so  little  reserve,  the  opinion  contained  in  this 
address. 

There  are  four  things  which,  I  humbly  conceive,  are  essential  to 
the  well  being,  I  may  even  venture  to  say,  to  the  existence,  of  the 
United  States,  as  an  independent  power. 

ist.  An  indissoluble  union  of  the  states  under  one  federal  head. 

2dly.   A  sacred  regard  to  public  justice. 

3dly.  The  adoption  of  a  proper  peace  establishment.     And, 

4thly.  The  prevalence  of  that  pacific  and  friendly  disposition  among 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  which  will  induce  them  to  forget  their 
local  prejudices  and  policies;  to  make  those  mutual  concessions  which 
are  requisite  to  the  general  prosperity;  and  in  some  instances,  to  sac 
rifice  their  individual  advantages  to  the  interest  of  the  community. 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON.  137 

These  are  the  pillars  on  which  the  glorious  fabric  of  our  indepen 
dency  and  national  character  must  be  supported.  Liberty  is  the  basis 
— and  whoever  would  dare  to  sap  the  foundation,  or  overturn  the 
structure,  under  whatever  specious  pretext  he  may  attempt  it,  will 
merit  the  bitterest  execration,  and  the  severest  punishment,  which  can 
be  afflicted  by  his  injured  country. 

On  the  three  first  articles  I  will  make  a  few  observations,  leaving 
the  last  to  the  good  sense  and  serious  consideration  of  those  immedi 
ately  concerned. 

Under  the  first  head,  although  it  may  not  be  necessary  or  proper 
for  me  in  this  place  to  enter  into  a  particular  disquisition  of  the  prin 
ciples  of  the  union,  and  to  take  up  the  great  question  which  has  been 
frequently  agitated,  whether  it  be  expedient  and  requisite  for  the  states 
to  delegate  a  larger  proportion  of  power  to  Congress,  or  not;  yet  it 
will  be  a  part  of  my  duty,  and  that  of  every  true  patriot,  to  assert, 
without  reserve,  and  to  insist  upon  the  following  positions: — That,  un 
less  the  states  will  suffer  Congress  to  exercise  those  prerogatives  they 
are  mdoubtedly  invested  with  by  the  constitution,  every  thing  must 
very  rapidly  tend  to  anarchy  and  confusion:  That  it  is  indispensable 
to  the  happiness  of  the  individual  states,  that  there  should  be  lodged, 
somewhere,  a  supreme  power  to  regulate  and  govern  the  general  con 
cerns  of  the  confederated  republic,  without  which  the  union  cannot  be 
of  long  duration.  That  there  must  be  a  faithful  and  pointed  compli 
ance  on  the  part  of  every  state  with  the  late  proposals  and  demands  of 
Congress,  or  the  most  fatal  consequences  will  ensue:  That  whatever 
measures  have  a  tendency  to  dissolve  the  union,  or  contribute  to  vio 
late  or  lessen  the  sovereign  authority,  ought  to  be  considered  as  hos 
tile  to  the  liberty  and  independence  of  America,  and  the  authors  of 
them  treated  accordingly.  And,  lastly,  that,  unless  we  can  be  enabled 
by  the  concurrence  of  the  states  to  participate  in  the  fruits  of  the  revo 
lution,  and  enjoy  the  essential  benefits  of  civil  society,  under  a  form  of 
government  so  free  and  uncorrupted,  so  happily  guarded  against  the 
danger  of  oppression,  as  has  been  devised  and  adopted  by  the  articles 
of  confederation,  it  will  be  a  subject  of  regret,  that  so  much  blood  and 
treasure  have  been  lavished  for  no  purpose;  that  so  many  sufferings 
have  been  encountered  without  a  compensation,  and  that  so  many 
sacrifices  have  been  made  in  vain.  Many  other  considerations  might 
here  be  adduced  to  prove,  that,  without  an  entire  conformity  to  the 
spirit  of  the  union,  we  cannot  exist  as  an  independent  power.  It  will 
be  sufficient  for  my  purpose  to  mention  but  one  or  two,  which  seem  to 
me  of  the  greatest  importance.  It  is  only  in  our  united  character  as 
an  empire,  that  our  independence  is  acknowledged,  that  our  power 
can  be  regarded,  or  our  credit  supported  among  foreign  nations.  The 
treaties  of  the  European  powers  with  the  United  States  of  America, 
will  have  no  validity  on  a  dissolution  of  the  union.  We  shall  be  left 
nearly  in  a  state  of  nature;  or  we  may  find,  by  our  own  unhappy  ex- 


138  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

perience,  that  there  is  a  natural  and  necessary  progression  from  the  ex 
treme  of  anarchy  to  the  extreme  of  tyranny;  and  that  arbitrary  power  is 
most  easily  established  on  the  ruins  of  liberty,  abused  to  licentiousness. 

As  to  the  second  article,  which  respects  the  performance  of  public 
justice,  Congress  have,  in  their  late  address  tc  the  United  States, 
almost  exhausted  the  subject;  they  have  explained  their  ideas  so  fully, 
and  have  enforced  the  obligations  the  states  are  under  to  render  com 
plete  justice  to  all  the  public  creditors,  with  so  much  dignity  and  en 
ergy,  that,  in  my  opinion,  no  real  friend  to  the  honor  and  independ 
ency  of  America  can  hesitate  a  single  moment  respecting  the  pro 
priety  of  complying  with  the  just  and  honorable  measures  proposed. 
If  their  arguments  do  not  produce  conviction,  I  know  of  nothing  that 
will  have  greater  influence,  especially  when  we  reflect  that  the  system 
referred  to,  being  the  result  of  the  collected  wisdom  of  the  continent, 
must  be  esteemed,  if  not  perfect,  certainly  the  least  objectionable,  of 
any  that  could  be  devised;  and  that,  if  it  should  not  be  carried  into 
immediate  execution,  a  national  bankruptcy,  with  all  its  deplorable 
consequences,  will  take  place  before  any  different  plan  can  possibly  be 
proposed  or  adopted;  so  pressing  are  the  present  circumstances,  and 
such  is  the  alternative  now  offered  to  the  states. 

The  ability  of  the  country  to  discharge  the  debts  which  have  been 
incurred  in  its  defence,  is  not  to  be  doubted;  and  inclination,  I  flatter 
myself,  will  not  be  wanting.  The  path  of  our  duty  is  plain  before  us; 
honesty  will  be  found,  on  every  experiment,  to  be  the  best  and  only 
true  policy.  Let  us  then,  as  a  nation,  be  just;  let  us  fulfil  the  public 
contracts  which  Congress  had  undoubtedly  a  right  to  make  for  the  pur 
pose  of  carrying  on  the  war,  with  the  same  good  faith  we  suppose  our 
selves  bound  to  perform  our  private  engagements.  In  the  meantime, 
let  an  attention  to  the  cheerful  performance  of  their  proper  business, 
as  individuals,  and  as  members  of  society,  be  earnestly  inculcated  on 
the  citizens  of  America;  then  will  they  strengthen  the  bands  of  govern 
ment,  and  be  happy  under  its  protection.  Every  one  will  reap  the 
fruit  of  his  labors:  every  one  will  enjoy  his  own  acquisitions,  without 
molestation  and  without  danger. 

In  this  state  of  absolute  freedom  and  perfect  security,  who  will 
grudge  to  yield  a  very  little  of  his  property  to  support  the  common  in 
terests  of  society,  and  ensure  the  protection  of  government  ?  Who 
does  not  remember  the  frequent  declarations  at  the  commencement  of 
the  war — that  we  should  be  completely  satisfied  if,  at  the  expense  of 
one  half,  we  could  defend  the  remainder  of  our  possessions  ?  Where 
is  the  man  to  be  found,  who  wishes  to  remain  in  debt,  for  the  defence 
of  his  own  person  and  property,  to  the  exertions,  the  bravery,  and  the 
blood  of  others,  without  making  one  generous  effort  to  pay  the  debt 
of  honor  and  of  gratitude  ?  In  what  part  of  the  continent  shall  we 
find  any  man,  or  body  of  men,  who  would  not  blush  to  stand  up  and 
propose  measures  purposely  calculated  to  rob  the  soldier  of  his  stipend, 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON.  139 

and  the  public  creditor  of  his  due  ?  And  were  it  possible  that  such  a 
flagrant  instance  of  injustice  could  ever  happen,  would  it  not  excite 
the  general  indignation,  and  tend  to  bring  down  upon  the  authors  of 
such  measures  the  aggravated  vengeance  of  Heaven  ?  If,  after  all,  a 
spirit  of  disunion,  or  a  temper  of  obstinacy  and  perverseness  should 
manifest  itself  in  any  of  the  states;  if  such  an  ungracious  disposition 
should  attempt  to  frustrate  all  the  happy  effect  that  might  be  expected 
to  flow  from  the  union;  if  there  should  be  a  refusal  to  comply  with  re 
quisitions  for  funds  to  discharge  the  annual  interest  of  the  public 
debt;  and  if  that  refusal  should  revive  all  those  jealousies,  and  pro 
duce  all  those  evils,  which  are  now  happily  removed,  Congress,  who 
have  in  all  their  transactions  shown  a  great  degree  of  magnanimity  and 
justice,  will  stand  justified  in  the  sight  of  God  and  man  !  and  that  state 
alone,  which  puts  itself  in  opposition  to  the  aggregate  wisdom  of  the 
continent,  and  follows  such  mistaken  and  pernicious  councils,  will  be 
responsible  for  all  the  consequences. 

For  my  own  part,  conscious  of  having  acted,  while  a  servant  of  the 
public,  in  the  manner  I  conceived  best  suited  to  promote  the  real  in 
terests  of  my  country;  having,  in  consequence  of  my  fixed  belief  in 
some  measure  pledged  myself  to  the  army,  that  their  country  would 
finally  do  them  complete  and  ample  justice,  and  not  wishing  to  con 
ceal  any  instance  of  my  official  conduct  from  the  eyes  of  the  world,  I 
have  thought  proper  to  transmit  to  your  excellency  the  enclosed  col 
lection  of  papers  relative  to  the  half-pay  and  commutation  granted  by 
Congress,  to  the  officers  of  the  army.  From  these  communications 
my  decided  sentiment  will  be  clearly  comprehended,  together  with  the 
conclusive  reasons  which  induced  me,  at  an  early  period,  to  recommend 
the  adoption  of  this  measure  in  the  most  earnest  and  serious  manner. 
As  the  proceedings  of  Congress,  the  army,  and  myself,  are  open  to 
all,  and  contain,  in  my  opinion,  sufficient  information  to  remove  the 
prejudices  and  errors  which  may  have  been  entertained  by  any,  I 
think  it  unnecessary  to  say  anything  more  than  just  to  observe, 
that  the  resolutions  of  Congress,  now  alluded  to,  are  as  undoubtedly 
and  absolutely  binding  upon  the  United  States,  as  the  most  solemn 
acts  of  confederation  or  legislation. 

As  to  the  idea  which,  I  am  informed,  has  in  some  instances  pre 
vailed,  that  the  half-pay  and  commutation  are  to  be  regarded  merely 
in  the  odious  light  of  a  pension,  it  ought  to  be  exploded  forever;  that 
provision  should  be  viewed,  as  it  really  was,  a  reasonable  compensa 
tion  offered  by  Congress,  at  a  time  when  they  had  nothing  else  to 
give  to  officers  of  the  army,  for  services  then  to  be  performed.  It  was 
the  only  means  to  prevent  a  total  dereliction  of  the  service.  It  was  a 
part  of  their  hire.  I  may  be  allowed  to  say,  it  was  the  price  of  their 
blood  and  of  your  independency.  It  is  therefore  more  than  a  common 
debt;  it  is  a  debt  of  honor;  it  can  never  be  considered  as  a  pension, 
or  gratuity,  nor  cancelled  until  it  is  fairly  discharged. 


14°  AMERICAN  PAl^RIOTISM. 

With  regard  to  the  distinction  between  officers  and  soldiers,  it  's 
sufficient  that  the  uniform  experience  of  every  nation  of  the  work!, 
combined  with  our  own,  proves  the  utility  and  propriety  of  the  dis 
crimination.  Rewards,  in  proportion  to  the  aid  the  public  draws  from 
them,  are  unquestionably  due  to  all  its  servants.  In  some  lines,  the 
soldiers  have,  perhaps,  generally,  had  an  ample  compensation  for 
their  services,  by  the  large  bounties  which  have  been  paid  them,  as 
their  officers  will  receive  in  the  proposed  commutation,  in  others,  if, 
besides  the  donation  of  land,  the  payment  of  arreages  of  clothing  and 
wages  (in  which  articles  all  the  component  parts  of  the  army  must  be 
put  upon  the  same  footing),  we  take  into  the  estimate  the  bounties 
many  of  the  soldiers  have  received,  and  the  gratuity  of  one  year's  full 
pay,  which  is  promised  to  all,  possibly  their  situation  (every  circum 
stance  being  duly  considered),  will  not  be  deemed  less  eligible  than  that 
of  the  officers.  Should  a  farther  reward,  however,  be  judged  equitable, 
I  will  venture  to  assert,  no  man  will  enjoy  greater  satisfaction  than 
myself,  in  an  exemption  from  taxes  for  a  limited  time  (which  has  been 
petitioned  for  in  some  instances),  or  any  other  adequate  immunity 
or  compensation  granted  to  the  brave  defenders  of  their  country's 
cause.  But  neither  the  adoption  or  rejection  of  this  proposition  will, 
in  any  manner,  affect,  much  less  militate  against  the  act  of  Congress, 
by  which  they  have  offered  five  years'  full  pay,  in  lieu  of  the  half 
pay  for  1'fe,  which  had  been  before  promised  to  the  officers  of  the 
army. 

Before  I  conclude  the  subject  on  public  justice,  I  cannot  omit  to 
mention  the  obligations  this  country  is  under  to  that  meritorious  class 
of  veterans,  the  non-commissioned  officers  and  privates,  who  have 
been  discharged  for  inability,  in  consequence  of  the  resolution  of 
Congress,  of  the  23d  of  April,  1782,  on  an  annual  pension  for  life. 
Their  peculiar  sufferings,  their  singular  merits  and  claims  to  that 
provision,  need  only  to  be  known,  to  interest  the  feelings  of  humanity 
in  their  behalf.  Nothing  but  a  punctual  payment  of  their  annual 
allowance,  can  rescue  them  from  the  most  complicated  misery;  and 
"othing  could  be  a  more  melancholy  and  distressing  sight  than  to  be 
hold  those  who  have  shed  their  blood,  or  lost  their  limbs  in  the  ser 
vice  of  their  country,  without  a  shelter,  without  a  friend,  and  without 
the  means  of  obtaining  any  of  the  comforts  or  necessaries  of  life,  com 
pelled  to  beg  their  1  r^ad  daily  from  door  to  door.  Suffer  me  to  recom 
mend  those  of  this  description,  belonging  to  your  state,  to  the  warmest 
patronage  of  your  excellency  and  your  legislature. 

It  is  necessary  to  say  but  a  few  words  on  the  third  topic  which 
was  proposed,  and  which  regards  particularly  the  defence  of  the  re 
public — as  there  can  be  little  doubt  but  Congress  will  recommend  a 
proper  peace  establishment  for  the  United  States,  in  which  a  due  at 
tention  will  be  paid  to  the  importance  of  placing  the  militia  of  the 
union  upon  a  regular  and  respectable  footing.  If  this  should  be  the 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON.  141 

case,  I  should  beg  leave  to  urge  the  great  advantage  of  it  in  the 
strongest  terms. 

The  militia  of  this  country  must  be  considered  as  the  palladium 
of  our  security,  and  the  first  effectual  resort  in  case  of  hostility.  It  is 
essential,  therefore,  that  the  same  system  should  pervade  the  whole; 
that  the  formation  and  discipline  of  the  militia  of  the  continent  shou'd 
be  absolutely  uniform;  and  that  the  same  species  of  arms,  accoutre 
ment,  and  military  apparatus,  should  be  introduced  in  every  part  of 
the  United  States.  No  one,  who  has  not  learned  it  from  experience, 
can  conceive  the  difficulty,  expense,  and  confusion,  which  result  from 
a  contrary  system,  or  the  vague  arrangements  which  have  hitherto 
prevailed. 

If,  in  treating  of  political  points,  a  greater  latitude  than  usual  has 
been  taken  in  the  course  of  the  address,  the  importance  of  the  crisis, 
and  the  magnitude  of  the  objects  in  discussion,  must  be  my  apology. 
It  is,  however,  neither  my  wish  nor  expectation,  that  the  preceding 
observations  should  claim  any  regard,  except  so  far  as  they  shall  ap 
pear  to  be  dictated  by  a  good  intention,  consonant  to  the  immutable 
rules  of  justice;  calculated  to  produce  a  liberal  system  of  policy,  and 
founded  on  whatever  experience  may  have  been  acquired  by  a  long 
and  close  attention  to  public  business.  Here  I  might  speak  with  more 
confidence  from  my  actual  observations;  and,  if  it  would  not  swell 
this  letter  (already  too  prolix),  beyond  the  bounds  I  had  prescribed 
myself,  I  could  demonstrate  to  every  mind  open  to  conviction,  that, 
in  less  time,  and  with  much  less  expense  than  has  been  incurred,  the 
war  might  have  been  brought  to  the  same  happy  conclusion,  if  the 
resources  of  the  continent  could  have  been  properly  called  forth;  that 
the  distresses  and  disappointments  which  have  very  often  occurred, 
have,  in  too  many  instances,  resulted  more  from  a  want  of  energy  in 
the  continental  government  than  a  deficiency  of  means  in  the  particu 
lar  states;  that  the  inefficacy  of  the  measures,  arising  from  the  want 
of  an  adequate  authority  in  the  supreme  power,  from  partial  compli 
ance  with  the  requisitions  of  Congress,  in  some  of  the  states,  and 
from  a  failure  of  punctuality  in  others,  while  they  tended  to  damp  the 
zeal  of  those  who  were  more  willing  to  exert  themselves,  served  also 
to  accumulate  the  expenses  of  the  war,  and  to  frustrate  the  best  con 
certed  plans;  and  that  the  discouragement  occasioned  by  the  compli 
cated  difficulties  and  embarrassments,  in  which  our  affairs  were  by 
this  means  involved,  would  have  long  ago  produced  the  dissolution 
of  any  army,  less  patient,  less  virtuous,  and  less  persevering,  than 
that  which  I  have  had  the  honor  to  command.  But,  while  I  men 
tion  those  things  which  are  notorious  facts,  as  the  defects  of  our 
federal  constitution,  particularly  in  the  prosecution  of  a  war,  I  beg  it 
may  be  understood,  that,  as  I  have  ever  taken  a  pleasure  in  gratefully 
acknowledging  the  assistance  and  support  I  have  derived  from  every 
class  of  citizens,  so  I  shall  always  be  happy  to  do  justice  to  the  un- 


142  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

paralleled  exertions  of  the  individual  states,  on  many  interesting  occa 
sions. 

I  have  thus  freely  disclosed  what  I  wished  to  make  known  before 
I  surrendered  up  my  public  trust  to  those  who  committed  it  to  me. 
The  task  is  now  accomplished;  I  now  bid  adieu  to  your  excellency, 
as  the  chief  magistrate  of  your  state;  at  the  same  time  I  bid  a  last 
farewell  to  the  cares  of  office,  and  all  the  employments  of  public  life. 

It  remains,  then,  to  be  my  final  and  only  request,  that  your  excel 
lency  will  communicate  these  sentiments  to  your  Legislature  at  their 
next  meeting,  and  that  they  may  be  considered  as  the  legacy  of  one 
who  has  ardently  wished,  on  all  occasions,  to  be  useful  to  his  country, 
and  who,  even  in  the  shade  of  retirement,  will  not  fail  to  implore  the 
Divine  benediction  upon  it. 

I  now  make  it  my  earnest  prayer,  that  God  would  have  you,  and 
the  state  over  which  you  preside,  in  His  holy  protection;  that  He 
would  incline  the  hearts  of  the  citizens  to  cultivate  a  spirit  of  subordi 
nation  and  obedience  to  government;  to  entertain  a  brotherly  affec 
tion  and  love  for  one  another;  for  their  fellow-citizens  of  the  United 
States  at  large,  and  particularly  for  their  brethren  who  have  served  in 
the  field;  and,  finally,  that  he  would  most  graciously  be  pleased  to 
dispose  us  all  to  do  justice,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  demean  ourselves 
with  that  charity,  humility,  and  pacific  temper  of  the  mind,  which 
were  the  characteristics  of  the  Divine  Author  of  our  blessed  religion, 
without  an  humble  imitation  of  whose  example,  in  these  things,  we 
can  never  hope  to  be  a  happy  nation. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  with  much  esteem  and  respect,  sir,  your 
excellency's  most  obedient  and  most  humble  servant. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 


FAREWELL  TO  THE  ARMY. 
GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 

Princeton,  November  2,  1783. 

The  United  States  in  Congress  assembled,  after  giving  the  most  hon 
orable  testimony  to  the  merits  of  the  federal  armies,  and  presenting 
them  with  the  thanks  of  their  country  for  their  long,  eminent,  and 
faithful  services,  having  thought  proper,  by  their  proclamation  bear 
ing  date  the  i8th  day  of  October  last,  to  discharge  such  part  of  the 
troops  as  were  engaged  for  the  war,  and  to  permit  the  officers  on  fur 
loughs  to  retire  from  service,  from  and  after  to-morrow;  which  procla 
mation  having  been  communicated  in  the  public  papers  for  the  infor 
mation  and  government  of  all  concerned,  it  only  remains  for  the 
Commander-in-chief  to  address  himself  once  more,  and  that  for  the 
last  time,  to  the  armies  of  the  United  States  (however  widely  dispersed 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON.  143 

the  individuals  who  composed  them  may  be),  and  to  bid  them  an  affec 
tionate,  a  long  farewell. 

But  before  the  Commander-in-chief  takes  his  final  leave  of  those  he 
holds  most  dear,  he  wishes  to  indulge  himself  a  few  moments  in  calling 
to  mind  a  slight  review  of  the  past.  He  will  then  take  the  liberty  of 
exploring  with  his  military  friends  their  future  prospects,  of  advising 
the  general  line  of  conduct,  which,  in  his  opinion,  ought  to  be  pur 
sued;  and  he  will  conclude  the  address  by  expressing  the  obligations 
he  fells  himself  under  for  the  spirited  and  able  assistance  he  has  ex- 
perienced  from  them,  in  the  performance  of  an  arduous  office. 

A  contemplation  of  the  complete  attainment  (at  a  period  earlier  than 
could  have  been  expected)  of  the  object,  for  which  we  contended 
against  so  formidable  a  power,  cannot  but  inspire  us  with  astonish 
ment  and  gratitude.  The  disadvantageous  circumstances  on  our  part, 
under  which  the  war  was  undertaken,  can  never  be  forgotten.  The 
singular  interpositions  of  Providence  in  our  feeble  condition  were 
such,  as  could  scarcely  escape  the  attention  of  the  most  unobserving; 
while  the  unparalleled  perseverance  of  the  armfes  of  the  United  States, 
through  almost  every  possible  suffering  and  discouragement  for  the 
space  of  eight  long  years,  was  little  short  of  a  standing  miracle. 

It  is  not  the  meaning  nor  within  the  compass  of  this  address,  to  de 
tail  the  hardships  peculiarly  incident  to  our  service,  or  to  describe  the 
distresses,  which  in  several  instances  have  resulted  from  the  extremes 
of  hunger  and  nakedness,  combined  with  the  rigors  of  an  inclement 
season;  nor  is  it  necessary  to  dwell  on  the  dark  side  of  our  past  affairs. 
Every  American  officer  and  soldier  must  now  console  himself  for  any 
unpleasant  circumstances,  which  may  have  occurred,  by  a  recollection 
of  the  uncommon  scenes  of  which  he  has  been  called  to  act  no  in 
glorious  part,  and  the  astonishing  events  of  which  he  has  been  a  wit 
ness;  events,  which  have  seldom,  if  ever  before,  taken  place  on  the 
stage  of  human  action;  nor  can  they  probably  ever  happen  again. 
For  who  has  before  seen  a  disciplined  army  formed  at  once  from  such 
raw  materials  ?  Who,  that  was  not  a  witness,  could  imagine,  that  the 
most  violent  local  prejudices  would  cease  so  soon;  and  that  men,  who 
came  from  the  different  parts  of  the  continent,  strongly  disposed  by 
the  habits  of  education  to  despise  and  quarrel  with  each  other,  would 
instantly  become  but  one  patriotic  band  of  brothers  ?  Or  who,  that 
was  not  on  the  spot,  can  trace  the  steps  by  which  such  a  wonderful 
revolution  has  been  effected,  and  such  a  glorious  period  put  to  all  our 
warlike  toils? 

It  is  universally  acknowledged,  that  the  enlarged  prospects  of  hap 
piness,  opened  by  the  confirmation  of  our  independence  and  sover 
eignty,  almost  exceed  the  power  of  description.  And  shall  not  the 
brave  men,  who  have  contributed  so  essentially  to  these  inestimable 
acquisitions,  retiring  victorious  from  the  field  of  war  to  the  field  of 
agriculture,  participate  in  all  the  blessings,  which  have  been  obtained? 


144  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

In  such  a  republic,  who  will  exclude  them  from  the  rights  of  citizens, 
and  the  fruits  of  their  labor?  In  such  a  country,  so  happily  circum 
stanced,  the  pursuits  of  commerce  and  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  will  un 
fold  to  industry  the  certain  road  to  competence.  To  those  hardy  sol 
diers,  who  are  actuated  by  the  spirit  of  adventure,  the  fisheries  will 
afford  ample  and  profitable  employment;  and  the  extensive  and  fertile 
regions  of  the  West  will  yield  a  most  happy  asylum  to  those,  who, 
fond  of  domestic  enjoyment,  are  seeking  for  personal  independence. 
Nor  is  it  possible  to  conceive  that  any  one  of  the  United  States  will 
prefer  a  national  bankruptcy,  and  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  to  a  com 
pliance  with  the  requisitions  of  Congress,  and  the  payment  of  its  just 
debts;  so  that  the  officers  and  soldiers  may  expect  considerable  assist 
ance,  in  recommencing  their  civil  occupations,  from  the  sums  due 
to  them  from  the  public,  which  must  and  will  most  inevitably  be 
paid. 

In  order  to  effect  this  desirable  purpose,  and  to  remove  the  preju 
dices,  which  may  have  taken  possession  of  the  minds  of  any  of  the 
good  people  of  the  States,  it  is  earnestly  recommended  to  all  the  troops, 
that,  with  strong  attachments  to  the  Union,  they  should  carry  with 
them  into  civil  society  the  most  conciliating  dispositions,  and  that  they 
should  prove  themselves  not  less  virtuous  and  useful  as  citizens,  than 
they  have  been  persevering  and  victorious  as  soldiers.  What  though 
there  should  be  some  envious  individuals,  who  are  unwilling  to  pay  the 
debt  the  public  has  contracted,  or  to  yield  the  tribute  due  to  merit;  yet 
let  such  unworthy  treatment  produce  no  invectives,  nor  any  instance 
of  intemperate  conduct.  Let  it  be  remembered,  that  the  unbiassed 
voice  of  the  free  citizens  of  the  United  States  has  promised  the  just 
reward  and  given  the  merited  applause.  Let  it  be  known  and  remem 
bered,  that  the  reputation  of  the  federal  armies  is  established  beyond 
the  reach  of  malevolence;  and  let  a  consciousness  of  their  achievements 
and  fame  still  incite  the  men,  who  composed  them,  to  honorable 
actions;  under  the  persuasion  that  the  private  virtues  of  economy,  pru 
dence,  and  industry,  will  not  be  less  amiable  in  civil  life,  than  the 
more  splendid  qualities  of  valor,  perseverance,  and  enterprise  were  in 
the  field.  Every  one  may  rest  assured,  that  much,  very  much,  of  the 
future  happiness  of  the  officers  and  men,  will  depend  upon  the  wise 
and  manly  conduct,  which  shall  be  adopted  by  them  when  they  are 
mingled  with  the  great  body  of  the  community.  And,  although  the 
General  has  so  frequently  given  it  as  his  opinion  in  the  most  public 
and  explicit  manner,  that,  unless  the  principles  of  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment  were  properly  supported,  and  the  powers  of  the  Union  in 
creased,  the  honor,  dignity,  and  justice  of  the  nation,  would  be  lost 
for  ever;  yet  he  cannot  help  repeating,  on  this  occasion,  so  interesting 
a  sentiment,  and  leaving  it  as  his  last  injunction  to  every  officer  and 
every  soldier,  who  may  view  the  subject  in  the  same  serious  point  of 
light,  to  add  his  best  endeavors  to  those  of  his  worthy  fellow  citizens 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON.  145 

towarcfs  effecting  these  great  and  valuable  purposes,  on  which  our  very 
existence  as  a  nation  so  materially  depends. 

The  Commander-in-chief  conceives  little  is  now  wanting,  to  enable 
the  soldfers  to  change  the  military  character  into  that  of  the  citizen, 
but  that  steady  and  decent  tenor  of  behavior,  which  has  generally  dis 
tinguished,  not  only  the  army  under  his  immediate  command,  but  the 
different  detachments  and  separate  armies  through  the  course  of  the 
war.  From  their  good  sense  and  prudence  he  anticipates  the  happiest 
consequences;  and,  while  he  congratulates  them  on  the  glorious  occa 
sion,  which  renders  their  services  in  the  field  no  longer  necessary,  he 
wishes  to  express  the  strong  obligations  he  feels  himself  under  for 
the  assistance  he  has  received  from  every  class  and  in  ever  instance. 
He  presents  his  thanks  in  the  most  serious  and  affectionate  manner 
to  the  general  officers,  as  well  for  their  counsel  on  many  interesting 
occasions,  as  for  their  ardor  in  promoting  the  success  of  the  plans  he 
had  adopted;  to  the  commandants  of  regiments  and  corps,  and  to  the 
other  officers,  for  their  great  zeal  and  attention  in  carrying  his  orders 
promptly  into  execution;  to  the  staff,  for  their  alacrity  and  exactness 
in  performing  the  duties  of  their  several  departments;  and  to  the  non 
commissioned  officers  and  private  soldiers,  for  their  extraordinary 
patience  and  suffering,  as  well  as  their  invincible  fortitude  in  action. 
To  the  various  branches  of  the  army,  the  General  takes  this  last  and 
solemn  opportunity  of  professing  his  inviolable  attachment  and  friend 
ship.  He  wishes  more  than  bare  professions  were  in  his  power;  that 
he  were  .really  able  to  be  useful  to  them  all  in  future  life.  He  flatters 
himself,  however,  they  will  do  him  the  justice  to  believe,  that  what 
ever  could  with  propriety  be  attempted  by  him  has  been  done. 

And  being  now  to  conclude  these  his  last  public  orders,  to  take  his 
ultimate  leave  in  a  short  time  of  the  military  character,  and  to  bid  a 
final  adieu  to  the  armies  he  has  so  long  had  the  honor  to  command,  he 
can  only  again  offer  in  their  behalf  his  recommendations  to  their  grateful 
country,  and  his  prayers  to  the  God  of  armies.  May  ample  justice 
be  done  them  here,  and  may  the  choicest  of  Heaven's  favors,  boih 
here  and  hereafter,  attend  those,  who,  under  the  Divine  auspices, 
have  secured  innumerable  blessings  for  others.  With  these  wishes 
and  his  benediction,  the  Commander-in-chief  is  about  to  retire  from 
service.  The  curtain  of  separation  will  soon  be  drawn,  and  the  mili 
tary  scene  to  him  v/ill  be  closed  for  ever. 


AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 


RESIGNATION  OF  COMMISSION. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 
New  York,   December  23,    1783. 

MR.  PRESIDENT  :  The  great  events  on  which  my  resignation  de 
pended,  having  at  length  taken  place,  I  have  now  the  honor  of  offer 
ing  my  sincere  congratulations  to  Congress,  and  of  presenting  myself 
before  them  to  surrender  into  their  hands  the  trust  committed  to  me, 
and  to  claim  the  indulgence  of  retiring  from  the  service  of  my 
country. 

Happy  in  the  confirmation  of  our  independence  and  sovereignty, 
and  pleased  with  the  opportunity  afforded  the  United  States  of  becom 
ing  a  respectable  nation,  I  resign,  with  satisfaction,  the  appointment 
I  accepted  with  diffidence  ;  a  diffidence  in  my  abilities  to  accomplish 
so  arduous  a  task,  which,  however,  was  superseded  by  a  confidence  in 
the  rectitude  of  our  cause,  the  support  of  the  Supreme  Power  of  the 
union,  and  the  patronage  of  Heaven. 

The  successful  termination  of  the  war  has  verified  the  most  san 
guine  expectations  ;  and  my  gratitude  for  the  interposition  of  Provi 
dence,  and  the  assistance  I  have  received  from  my  countrymen,  in 
creases  with  every  review  of  the  momentous  contest. 

While  I  repeat  my  obligations  to  the  army  in  general,  I  should  do 
injustice  to  my  own  feelings,  not  to  acknowledge,  in  this  place,  the 
peculiar  services  and  distinguished  merits  of  the  persons  who  have 
been  attached  to  my  person  during  the  war.  It  was  impossible  the 
choice  of  confidential  officers  to  compose  my  family  could  have  been 
more  fortunate.  Permit  me,  sir,  to  recommend  in  particular  those 
who  have  continued  in  the  service  to  the  present  moment  as  worthy  of 
the  favorable  notice  and  patronage  of  Congress. 

I  consider  it  as  an  indispensable  duty  to  close  this  last  solemn  act 
of  my  official  life,  by  commending  the  interests  of  our  dearest  coun 
try  to  the  protection  of  Almighty  God,  and  those  who  have  the  super 
intendence  of  them  to  his  holy  keeping. 

Having  now  finished  the  work  assigned  me,  I  retire  from  the  great 
theatre  of  action;  and,  bidding  an  affectionate  farewell  to  this  august 
body,  under  whose  orders  I  have  long  acted,  I  here  offer  my  commis 
sion,  and  take  my  leave  of  all  the  employments  of  public  life. 


BENJAMIN  RUSH.  14? 

THE  DEFECTS  OF  THE  CONFEDERATION. 
BENJAMIN    RUSH. 

Philadelphia,  1737. 

There  is  nothing  more  common  than  10  confound  the  terms  of 
American  Revolution  with  those  of  the  late  American  War,  The 
American  war  is  over:  but  this  is  far  from  being  the  case  with  the 
American  revolution.  On  the  contrary,  nothing  but  the  first  act  of 
the  great  drama  is  closed.  It  remains  yet  to  establish  and  perfect  our 
new  forms  of  government;  and  to  prepare  the  principles,  morals,  an  1 
manners  of  our  citizens  for  these  forms  of  government,  after  they  are 
established  and  brought  to  perfection. 

The  confederation,  together  with  most  of  our  State  constitutions, 
were  formed  under  very  unfavorable  circumstances.  We  had  just 
emerged  from  a  corrupted  monarchy.  Although  we  understood  per 
fectly  the  principles  of  liberty,  yet  most  of  us  were  ignorant  of  the 
forms  and  combinations  of  power  in  republics.  Add  to  this,  the 
British  army  was  in  the  heart  of  our  country,  spreading  desolation 
wherever  it  went:  our  resentments,  of  course,  were  awakened.  We 
detested  the  British  name,  and  unfortunately  refused  to  copy  some 
things  in  the  administration  of  justice  and  power,  in  the  British  Gov 
ernment,  which  have  made  it  the  admiration  and  envy  of  the  world. 
In  our  opposition  to  monarchy,  we  forgot  that  the  temple  of  tyranny 
has  two  doors.  We  bolted  one  of  them  by  proper  restraints;  but  we 
left  the  other  open,  by  neglecting  to  guard  against  the  effects  of  our 
own  ignorance  and  licentiousness. 

Most  of  the  present  difficulties  of  this  country  arise  from  the  weak, 
ness  and  other  defects  of  our  governments. 

My  business  at  present  shall  be  only  to  suggest  the  defects  of  the 
confederation.  These  consist— ist.  In  the  deficiency  of  coercive 
power.  2d.  In  a  defect  of  exclusive  power  to  issue  paper  money, 
and  regulate  commerce.  3d.  In  vesting  the  sovereign  power  of  the 
United  States  in  a  single  legislature:  and  4th.  In  the  too  frequent  nx 
tation  of  its  members. 

A  convention  is  to  sit  soon  for  the  purpose  of  devising  means  of 
obviating  part  of  the  two  first  defects  that  have  been  mentioned.  But 
I  wish  they  may  add  to  their  recommendations  to  each  State  to  sur^ 
render  up  to  Congress  their  power  of  emitting  money.  In  this  way, 
a  uniform  currency  will  be  produced,  that  will  facilitate  trade,  and 
help  to  bind  the  States  together.  Nor  will  the  States  be  deprived  of 
large  sums  of  money  by  this  means,  when  sudden  emergencies  require 
it;  for  they  may  always  borrow  them,  as  they  did  during  the  war,  out 
of  the  treasury  of  Congress.  Even  a  loan  office  may  be  better  insti 
tuted  in  this  way,  in  each  State,  than  in  any  other. 


148  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

The  two  last  defects  that  have  been  mentioned  are  not  of  less  mag 
nitude  than  the  first.  Indeed,  the  single  legislature  of  Congress  will 
become  more  dangerous  from  an  increase  of  power  than  ever.  To 
remedy  this,  let  the  supreme  federal  power  be  divided,  like  the  legisla 
tures  of  most  of  our  States,  into  two  distinct,  independent  branches. 
Let  one  of  them  be  styled  the  Council  of  the  States  and  the  other  the 
Assembly  of  the  States.  Let  the  first  consist  of  a  single  delegate — - 
and  the  second  of  two,  three,  or  four  delegates,  chosen  annually  by 
each  State.  Let  the  president  be  chosen  annually  by  the  joint  ballot  of 
both  Houses;  and  let  him  possess  certain  powers,  in  conjunction  with 
a  privy  council,  especially  the  power  of  appointing  most  of  the  officers 
of  the  United  States.  The  officers  will  not  only  be  better  when  ap 
pointed  this  way,  but  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  faction  will  be 
thereby  removed  from  Congress.  I  apprehend  this  division  of  the 
power  of  Congress  will  become  more  necessary  as  soon  as  they  are 
invested  with  more  ample  powers  of  levying  -and  expending  public 
money. 

The  custom  of  turning  men  out  of  power  or  office  as  soon  as  they 
are  qualified  for  it,  has  been  found  to  be  absurd  in  practice.  Is  it 
virtuous  to  dismiss  a  general — a  physician — or  even  a  domestic,  as 
soon  as  they  have  acquired  knowledge  sufficient  to  be  useful  to  us,  for 
thd£  ake  of  increasing  the  number  of  able  generals,  skilful  physicians — 
and  faithful  servants?  We  do  not.  Government  is  a  science,  and 
can  never  be  perfect  in  America  until  we  encourage  men  to  devote  not 
only  three  years,  but  their  whole  lives  to  it.  I  believe  the  principal 
reason  why  so  many  men  of  abilities  object  to  serving  in  Congress  is 
owing  to  their  not  thinking  it  worth  while  to  spend  three  years  in 
acquiring  a  profession  which  their  country  immediately  afterwards  for 
bids  them  to  follow. 

There  are  two  errors  or  prejudices  on  the  subject  of  government  in 
America,  which  lead  to  the  most  dangerous  consequences. 

It  is  often  said,  "  that  the  sovereign  and  all  other  power  is  seated  in 
the  people."  This  idea  is  unhappily  expressed.  It  should  be,  "all 
power  is  derived  from  the  people,"  they  possess  it  only  on  the  days  of 
their  elections.  After  this,  it  is  the  property  of  their  rulers;  nor  can 
they  exercise  or  resume  it  unless  it  be  abused.  It  is  of  importance  to 
circulate  this  idea,  as  it  leads  to  order  and  good  government. 

The  people  of  America  have  mistaken  the  meaning  of  the  word 
sovereignty:  hence  each  state  pretends  to  be  sovereign.  In  Europe, 
it  is  applied  only  to  those  states  which  possess  the  power  of  making 
war  and  peace — of  forming  treaties,  and  the  like.  As  this  power  be 
longs  only  to  Congress,  they  are  the  only  sovereign  power  in  the 
United  States. 

We  commit  a  similar  mistake  in  our  ideas  of  the  word  independent. 
No  individual  state,  as  such,  has  any  claim  to  independence.  She  is 
independent  only  in  a  union  with  her  sister  states  in  congress. 


BENJAMIN  RUSH.  149 

To  conform  the  principles,  morals,  and  manners  of  our  citizens,  to 
our  republican  forms  of  government,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that 
knowledge  of  every  kind  should  be  disseminated  through  every  part 
of  the  United  States. 

For  this  purpose  let  Congress,  instead  of  laying  out  a  half  a  million 
of  dollars  in  building  a  federal  town,  appropriate  only  a  fourth  of  that 
sum  in  founding  a  federal  university.  In  this  university  let  every 
thing  connected  with  government,  such  as  history — the  law  of  nature 
and  nations,  the  civil  law,  the  municipal  laws  of  our  country,  and 
the  principles  of  commerce — be  taught  by  competent  professors.  Let 
masters  be  employed,  likewise,  to  teach  gunnery,  fortification,  and 
everything  connected  with  defensive  and  offensive  war.  Above  all, 
let  a  professor  of,  what  is  called  in  the  European  universities,  economy, 
be  established  in  this  federal  seminary.  His  business  should  be  to 
unfold  the  principles  and  practice  of  agriculture  and  manufactures  of 
all  kinds,  and  to  enable  him  to  make  his  lectures  more  extensively  use 
ful,  Congress  should  support  a  travelling  correspondent  for  him,  who 
should  visit  all  the  nations  of  Europe,  and  transmit  to  him,  from 
time  to  time,  all  the  discoveries  and  improvements  that  are  made  in 
agriculture  and  manufactures.  To  this  seminary  young  men  should 
be  encouraged  to  repair,  after  completing  their  academical  studies  in 
the  colleges  of  their  respective  states.  The  honors  and  offices  of  the 
United  States  should,  after  a  while,  be  confined  to  persons  who  had 
imbibed  federal  and  republican  ideas  in  this  university. 

For  the  purpose  of  diffusing  knowledge,  as  well  as  extending  the 
living  principle  of  government  to  every  part  of  the  United  States — 
every  State,  city,  county,  village,  and  township  in  the  Union  should 
be  tied  together  by  means  of  the  post  office.  This  is  the  true  non 
electric  wire  of  government.  It  is  the  only  means  of  conveying  heat 
and  light  to  every  individual  in  the  federal  commonwealth.  "  Swe 
den  lost  her  liberties,"  says  the  Abbe  Raynal,  "  because  her  citizens 
were  so  scattered  that  they  had  no  means  of  acting  in  concert  with 
each  other."  It  should  be  a  constant  injunction  to  the  postmasters  to 
convey  newspapers  free  of  all  charge  for  postage.  They  are  not  only 
the  vehicles  of  knowledge  and  intelligence,  but  the  sentinels  of  the 
liberties  of  our  country. 

The  conduct  of  some  of  those  strangers  who  have  visited  our  country 
since  the  peace,  and  who  fill  the  British  papers  with  accounts  of  our 
distresses,  shows  as  great  a  want  of  good  sense  as  it  does  of  good 
nature.  They  see  nothing  but  the  foundations  and  walls  of  the  temple 
of  liberty;  and  yet  they  undertake  to  judge  of  the  whole  fabric. 

Our  own  citizens  act  a  still  more  absurd  part  when  they  cry  out, 
after  the  experience  of  three  or  four  years,  that  we  are  not  proper 
materials  for  republican  government.  Remember,  we  assumed  these 
forms  of  government  in  a  hurry,  before  we  were  prepared  for  them. 
Let  every  man  exert  himself  in  promoting  virtue  and  knowledge  in 


I  5°  AMERICAN  PA  TRIO TISM. 

our  country,  and  we  shall  soon  become  good  republicans.  Look  at 
the  steps  by  which  governments  have  been  changed,  or  rendered  stable 
in  Europe.  Read  the  history  of  Great  Britain.  Her  boasted  govern 
ment  has  risen  out  of  wars  and  rebellions  that  lasted  above  six  hun 
dred  years.  The  United  States  are  travelling  peaceably  into  order  and 
good  government.  They  know  no  strife — but  what  arises  from  the 
collision  of  opinions;  and,  in  three  years,  they  have  advanced  further 
in  the  road  to  stability  and  happiness  than  most  of  the  nations  in 
Europe  have  done,  in  as  many  centuries. 

There  is  but  one  path  that  can  lead  the  United  States  to  destruction; 
and  that  is  their  extent  of  territory.  It  was  probably  to  effect  this 
that  Great  Britain  ceded  to  us  so  much  waste  land.  But  even  this 
path  may  be  avoided.  Let  but  one  new  state  be  exposed  to  sale  at  a 
time,  and  let  the  land  office  be  shut  up  till  every  part  of  this  new  state 
be  settled. 

I  am  extremely  sorry  to  find  a  passion  for  retirement  so  universal 
among  the  patriots  and  heroes  of  the  war.  They  resemble  skilful 
mariners  who,  after  exerting  themselves  to  preserve  a  ship  from  sink 
ing  in  a  storm,  in  the  middle  of  the  ocean,  drop  asleep  as  soon  as  the 
waves  subside,  and  leave  the  care  of  their  lives  and  property,  during 
the  remainder  of  the  voyage,  to  sailors  without  knowledge  or  experi 
ence.  Every  man  in  a  republic  is  public  property.  His  time  and 
talents,  his  youth,  his  manhood,  his  old  age;  nay  more,  his  life,  his 
all,  belong  to  his  country. 

Patriots  of  1774,  1775,  1776 — heroes  of  1778,  1779,  1780,  come  for 
ward!  your  country  demands  your  services.  Philosophers  and  friends 
to  mankind  come  forward!  your  country  demands  your  studies  and 
speculations.  Lovers  of  peace  and  order,  who  declined  taking  part  in 
the  late  war,  come  forward!  your  country  forgives  your  timidity  and 
demands  your  influence  and  advice.  Hear  her  proclaiming,  in  sighs 
and  groans,  in  her  governments,  in  her  finances,  in  her  trade,  in  her 
manufactures,  in  her  morals  and  in  her  manners,  "  The  Revolution  is 
not  over. 


EULOGY  ON  ADAMS  AND  JEFFERSON. 

DANIEL  WEBSTER. 

Faneuil  Hall^  Boston,  A  ugust  2,  1826. 

This  is  an  unaccustomed  spectacle.  For  the  first  time,  fellow 
citizens,  badges  of  mourning  shroud  the  columns  and  overhang  the 
arches  of  this  hall.  These  walls,  which  were  consecrated  so  long  ago 
to  the  cause  of  American  liberty,  which  witnessed  her  infant  struggles, 
and  rung  with  the  shouts  of  her  earliest  victories,  proclaim  now  that 
distinguished  friends  and  champions  of  the  great  cause  have  fallen.  It 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  151 

is  right  that  it  should  be  thus.  The  tears  which  flow,  and  the  honors 
that  are  paid,  when  the  founders  of  the  republic  die,  give  hope  that 
the  republic  itself  may  be  immortal.  It  is  fit  that  by  public  assembly 
and  solemn  observance,  by  anthem  and  by  eulogy,  we  commemorate 
the  services  of  national  benefactors,  extol  their  virtues,  and  render 
thanks  to  God  for  eminent  blessings,  early  given  and  long-continued, 
to  our  favored  country. 

'  Adams  and  Jefferson  are  no  more;  and  we  are  assembled,  fellow- 
citizens — the  aged,  the  middle-aged,  and  the  young — by  the  spontaneous 
impulse  of  all,  under  the  authority  of  the  municipal  government,  with 
the  presence  of  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  commonwealth,  and  others 
its  official  representatives,  the  university,  and  the  learned  societies,  to 
bear  our  part  in  those  manifestations  of  respect  and  gratitude  which 
universally  pervade  the  land.  Adams  and  Jefferson  are  no  more.  On 
our  fiftieth  anniversary,  the  great  day  of  national  jubilee,  in  the  very 
hour  of  public  rejoicing,  in  the  midst  of  echoing  and  re-echoing  voices 
of  thanksgiving,  while  their  own  names  were  on  all  tongues,  they  took 
their  flight  together  to  the  world  of  spirits. 

If  it  be  true  that  no  one  can  safely  be  pronounced  happy  while  he 
lives:  if  that  event  which  terminates  life  can  alone  crown  its  honors 
and  its  glory,  what  felicity  is  here!  The  great  epic  of  their  lives,  how 
happily  concluded!  Poetry  itself  has  hardly  closed  illustrious  lives 
and  finished  the  career  of  earthly  renown,  by  such  a  consummation. 
If  we  had  the  power  we  could  not  wish  to  reverse  this  dispensation  of 
the  Divine  Providence.  The  great  objects  of  life  were  accomplished; 
the  drama  was  ready  to  be  closed;  it  has  closed;  our  patriots  have 
fallen;  but  so  fallen,  at  such  age,  with  such  coincidence,  on  such  a  day, 
that  we  cannot  rationally  lament  that  that  end  has  come,  which  we 
knew  could  not  be  long  deferred.  Neither  of  these  great  men,  fellow- 
citizens,  could  have  died  at  any  time  without  leaving  an  immense  void 
in  our  American  society.  They  have  been  so  intimately,  and  for  so 
long  a  time,  blended  with  the  history  of  the  country,  and  especially  so 
united,  in  our  thoughts  and  recollections,  with  the  events  of  the  revo 
lution,  that  the  death  of  either  would  have  touched  the  strings  of 
public  sympathy.  We  should  have  felt  that  one  great  link,  connecting 
us  with  former  times,  was  broken;  that  we  had  lost  something  more, 
as  it  were,  of  the  presence  of  the  revolution  itself,  and  of  the  act  of 
independence,  and  were  driven  on  by  another  great  remove  from  the 
days  of  our  country's  early  distinction  to  meet  posterity  and  to  mix 
with  the  future.  Like  the  mariner,  whom  the  ocean  and  the  winds 
carry  along  till  he  sees  the  stars  which  have  directed  his  course,  and 
lighted  his  pathless  way,  descend  one  by  one  beneath  the  rising 
horizon;  we  should  have  felt  that  the  stream  of  time  had  borne  us 
onward,  till  another  great  luminary,  whose  light  had  cheered  us,  and 
whose  guidance  we  had  followed,  had  sunk  away  from  our  sight. 

But  the  concurrence  of  their  death,  on  the  anniversary  of  indepen- 
A.  P.— 6. 


152  . .       AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM.       V 

dence,  has  naturally  awakened  stronger  emotions.  Both  had  been 
presidents;  both  had  lived  to  great  age;  both  were  early  patriots;  and 
both  were  distinguished  and  even  honored  by  their  immediate  agency 
in  the  act  of  independence.  It  cannot  but  seem  striking  and  extra 
ordinary  that  these  two  should  live  to  see  the  fiftieth  year  from  the 
date  of  that  act;  that  they  should  complete  that  year;  and  that  then, 
on  the  day  which  had  fast  linked  forever  their  own  fame  with  their 
country's  glory,  the  heavens  should  open  to  receive  them  both  at 
once.  As  their  lives  themselves  were  the  gifts  of  Providence,  who  is 
not  willing  to  recognize  in  their  happy  termination,  as  well  as  in  their 
long  continuance,  proofs  that  our  country  and  its  benefactors  are 
objects  of  His  care? 

Adams  and  Jefferson,  I  have  said,  are  no  more.  As  human  beings, 
indeed,  they  are  no  more.  They  are  no  more,  as  in  1776,  bold  and 
fearless  advocates  of  independence:  no  more,  as  on  subsequent 
periods,  the  head  of  the  government;  no  more,  as  we  have  recently 
seen  them,  aged  and  venerable  objects  of  admiration  and  regard. 
They  are  no  more.  They  are  dead.  But  how  little  is  there  of  the 
great  and  good  which  can  die!  To  their  country  they  yet  live,  and 
live  forever.  They  live  in  all  that  perpetuates  the  remembrance  of 
men  on  earth;  in  the  recorded  proofs  of  their  own  great  actions,  in 
the  offspring  of  their  intellect,  in  the  deep  engraved  lines  of  public 
gratitude,  and  in  the  respect  and  homage  of  mankind.  They  live  in 
their  example;  and  they  live,  emphatically,  and  will  live  in  the  influence 
which  their  lives  and  efforts,  their  principles  and  opinions,  now  exer 
cise,  and  will  continue  to  exercise,  on  the  affairs  of  men,  not  only  in 
their  own  country  but  throughout  the  civilized  world.  A  superior  and 
commanding  human  intellect,  a  truly  great  man,  when  Heaven  vouch 
safes  so  rare  a  gift,  is  not  a  temporary  flame,  burning  bright  for  a 
while,  and  then  expiring,  giving  place  to  returning  darkness.  It  is 
rather  a  spark  of  fervent  heat,  as  well  as  radiant  light,  with  power  to 
enkindle  the  common  mass  of  human  mind;  so  that  when  it  glimmers, 
in  its  own  decay,  and  finally  goes  out  in  death,  no  night  follows,  but 
it  leaves  the  world  all  light,  all  on  fire,  from  the  potent  contact  of  its 
o\vn  spirit.  Bacon  died;  but  the  human  understanding,  roused  by  the 
touch  of  his  miraculous  wand,  to  a  perception  of  the  true  philosophy, 
and  the  just  mode  of  inquiring  after  truth,  has  kept  on  its  course,  suc 
cessfully  and  gloriously.  Newton  died;  yet  the  courses  of  the  spheres 
are  still  known,  and  they  yet  move  on  in  the  orbits  which  he  saw,  and 
described  for  them,  in  the  infinity  of  space. 

No  two  men  now  live,  fellow-citizens, — perhaps  it  may  be  doubted, 
whether  any  two  men  have  ever  lived  in  one  age, — who,  more  than 
those  we  now  commemorate,  have  impressed  their  own  sentiments,  in 
regard  to  politics  and  government,  on  mankind,  infused  their  own 
opinions  more  deeply  into  the  opinions  of  others,  or  given  a  more 
lasting  direction  to  the  current  of  human  thought.  Their  work  doth  not 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  153 

perish  with  them.  The  tree  which  they  assisted  to  plant,  will  flourish, 
although  they  water  it  and  protect  it  no  longer;  for  it  has  struck  its 
roots  deep;  it  has  sent  them  to  the  very  centre;  no  storm,  not  of  force 
to  burst  the  orb,  can  overturn  it;  its  branches  spread  wide;  they  stretch 
their  protecting  arms  broader  and  broader,  and  its  top  is  destined  to 
reach  the  heavens.  We  are  not  deceived.  There  is  no  delusion  here. 
No  age  will  come,  in  which  the  American  revolution  will  appear  less 
than  it  is,  one  of  the  greatest  events  in  human  history.  No  age  will 
come,  in  which  it  will  cease  to  be  seen  and  felt,  on  either  continent, 
that  a  mighty  step,  a  great  advance,  not  only  in  American  affairs,  but  in 
human  affairs,  was  made  on  the  fourth  of  July,  1776.  And  no  age  will 
come,  we  trust,  so  ignorant  or  so  unjust,  as  not  to  see  and  acknowl 
edge  the  efficient  agency  of  these  we  now  honor,  in  producing  that 
momentous  event. 

We  are  not  assembled,  therefore,  fellow-citizens,  as  men  over 
whelmed  with  calamity  by  the  sudden  disruption  of  the  ties  of  friend 
ship  or  affec  ion,  or  as  in  despair  for  the  republic,  by  the  untimely 
blighting  of  its  hopes.  Death  has  not  surprised  us  by  an  unseasonable 
blow.  We  have,  indeed,  seen  the  tomb  close,  but  it  has  closed  only 
over  mature  years,  over  long-protracted  public  service,  over  the  weak 
ness  of  age,  and  over  life  itself  only  when  the  ends  of  living  had  been 
fulfilled.  These  suns,  as  they  rose  slowly,  and  steadily,"  amidst  clouds 
and  storms,  in  their  ascendant,  so  they  have  not  rushed  from  their 
meridian  to  sink  suddenly  in  the  west.  Like  the  mildness,  the  seren 
ity,  the  continuing  benignity  of  a  summer's  day,  they  have  gone  down 
with  slow  descending,  grateful,  long-lingering  light,  and  now  that  they 
are  beyond  the  visible  margin  of  the  world,  good  omens  cheer  us  from 
"  the  bright  track  of  their  fiery  car." 

There  were  many  points  of  similarity  in  the  lives  and  fortunes  of 
these  great  men.  They  belonged  to  the  same  profession,  and  had 
pursued  its  studies  and  its  practice,  for  unequal  lengths  of  time  indeed, 
but  with  diligence  and  effect.  Both  were  learned  and  able  lawyers. 
They  were  natives  and  inhabitants,  respectively,  of  those  two  of  the 
colonies,  which,  at  the  revolution,  were  the  largest  and  most  powerful, 
and  which  naturally  had  a  lead  in  the  political  affairs  of  the  times. 
When  the  colonies  became,  in  some  degree,  united,  by  the  asserrV:in<7 
of  a  general  congress,  they  were  brought  to  act  together,  in  its  delib 
erations,  not  indeed  at  the  same  time,  but  both  at  early  periods.  Each 
had  already  manifested  his  attachment  to  the  cause  of  the  country,  as 
well  as  his  ability  to  maintain  it,  by  printed  addresses,  public  speeches. 
extensive  correspondence,  and  whatever  other  mode  could  be  adopted, 
for  the  purpose  of  exposing  the  encroachments  of  the  British  Parlia 
ment  and  animating  the  people  to  a  manly  resistance.  Both  were  not 
only  decided,  but  early  friends  of  independence.  While  others  yet 
doubted,  they  were  resolved;  while  others  hesitated,  they  pressed 
forward.  They  were  both  members  of  the  committee  for  preparing 


154  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  they  constituted  the  sub-com 
mittee,  appointed  by  the  other  members  to  make  the  draught.  They 
left  their  seats  in  Congress,  being  called  to  other  public  employments, 
at  periods  not  remote  from  each  other,  although  one  of  them  returned 
to  it,  afterwards,  for  a  short  time.  Neither  of  them  was  of  the  assem 
bly  of  great  men  which  formed  the  present  constitution,  and  neither 
was  at  any  time  member  of  Congress  under  its  provisions.  Both  have 
been  public  ministers  abroad,  both  vice-presidents,  and  both  presi 
dents.  These  coincidences  are  now  singularly  crowned  and  completed. 
They  have  died  together;  and  they  died  on  the  anniversary  of  liberty. 

When  many  of  us  were  last  in  this  place,  fellow-citizens,  it  Avas  on 
the  day  of  that  anniversary.  We  were  met  to  enjoy  the  festivities 
belonging  to  the  occasion,  and  to  manifest  our  grateful  homage  to  our 
political  fathers. 

We  did  not,  we  could  not  here,  forget  our  venerable  neighbor  of 
Quincy.  We  knew  that  we  were  standing,  at  a  time  of  high  and 
palmy  prosperity,  where  he  had  stood  in  the  hour  of  utmost  peril; 
that  we  saw  nothing  but  liberty  and  security,  where  he  had  met  the 
frown  of  power;  that  we  were  enjoying  every  thing,  where  he  had 
hazarded  every  thing;  and  just  and  sincere  plaudits  rose  to  his  name, 
from  the  crowds  which  filled  this  area,  and  hung  over  these  galleries. 
He  whose  grateful  duty  it  was  to  speak  to  us,  on  that  day,  of  the  vir 
tues  of  our  fathers,  had,  indeed,  admonished  us  that  time  and  years 
were  about  to  level  his  venerable  frame  with  the  dust.  But  he  bade 
us  hope,  that  the  "sound  of  a  nation's  joy,  rushing  from  our  cities, 
ringing  from  our  valleys,  echoing  from  our  hills,  might  yet  break  the 
silence  of  his  aged  ear;  that  the  rising  blessings  of  grateful  millions 
might  yet  visit,  with  glad  light,  his  decaying  vision."  Alas  !  that 
vision  was  then  closing  forever.  Alas  !  the  silence  which  was  then 
settling  on  that  aged  ear,  was  an  everlasting  silence  !  For,  lo  !  in 
the  very  moment  of  our  festivities,  his  freed  spirit  ascended  to  God 
who  gave  it  !  Human  aid  and  human  solace  terminate  at  the  grave; 
or  we  would  gladly  have  borne  him  upward,  on  a  nation's  outspread 
hands;  we  would  have  accompanied  him,  and  with  the  blessings  of 
millions,  and  the  prayers  of  millions,  commended  him  to  the  divine 
favor. 

"While  still  indulging  our  thoughts  on  the  coincidence  of  the  death 
of  this  venerable  man  with  the  anniversary  of  independence,  we  learn 
that  Jefferson,  too,  has  fallen;  and  that  these  aged  patriots,  tlie^ic 
illustrious  fellow-laborers,  had  left  our  world  together.  May  not  such 
events  raise  the  suggestion  that  they  are  not  undesigned,  and  the.'- 
Heaven  does  so  order  things  as  sometimes  to  attract  strongly  the 
attention,  and  excite  the  thoughts  of  men?  The  occurrence  has 
added  new  interest  to  our  anniversary,  and  will  be  remembered  in  all 
time  to  come. 

The  occasion,  fellow-citizens,  requires  some  account  of  the  lives  and 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  155 

services  of  John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson.  This  duty  must  neces 
sarily  be  performed  with  great  brevity;  and,  in  the  discharge  of  it,  I 
shall  be  obliged  to  confine  myself,  principally,  to  those  parts  of  their 
history  and  character  which  belonged  to  them  as  public  men. 

John  Adams  was  born  at  Quincy,  then  part  of  the  ancient  town  of 
Hraintree,  on  the  igth  day  of  October  (old  style),  1735.  He  was  a 
descendant  of  the  Puritans,  his  ancestors  having  early  emigrated  from 
England  and  settled  in  Massachusetts.  Discovering  early  a  strong 
love  of  reading  and  of  knowledge,  together  with  marks  of  great  strength 
and  activity  of  mind,  proper  care  was  taken  by  his  worthy  father,  to 
provide  for  his  education.  He  pursued  his  youthful  studies  in  Brain- 
tree,  under  Mr.  Marsh,  a  teacher  whose  fortune  it  was  that  Josiah 
Quincy,  Jr.  as  well  as  the  subject  of  these  remarks,  should  receive 
from  him  his  instruction  in  the  rudiments  of  classical  literature.  Hav 
ing  been  admitted,  in  1751,  a  member  of  Harvard  college,  Mr.  Adams 
was  graduated,  in  course,  in  1755;  and  on  the  catalogue  of  that  insti 
tution,  his  name,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  was  second  among  the 
living  alumni,  being  preceded  only  by  that  of  the  venerable  Holyoke. 
With  what  degree  of  reputation  he  left  the  university,  is  not  now  pre 
cisely  known.  We  know  only  that  he  was  distinguished,  in  a  class 
which  numbered  Locke  and  Hemenway  among  its  members.  Choosing 
the  law  for  his  profession,  he  commenced  and  prosecuted  his  studies 
at  Worcester,  under  the  direction  of  Samuel  Putnam,  a  gentleman 
whom  he  has  himself  described  as  an  acute  man,  an  able  and  learned 
lawyer,  and  as  in  large  professional  practice  at  that  time.  In  1758,  he 
was  admitted  to  the  bar,  and  commenced  business  in  Braintree.  He 
is  understood  to  have  made  his  first  considerable  effort,  or  to  have 
obtained  his  first  signal  success,  at  Plymouth,  on  one  of  those  occa 
sions  which  furnish  the  earliest  opportunity  for  distinction  to  many 
young  men  of  the  profession,  a  jury  trial,  and  a  criminal  cause.  His 
business  naturally  grew  with  his  reputation,  and  his  residence  in  the 
vicinity  afforded  the  opportunity,  as  his  growing  eminence  gave  the 
power,  of  entering  on  the  larger  field  of  practice  which  the  capital  pre 
sented.  In  1766,  he  removed  his  residence  to  Boston,  still  continuing 
his  attendance  on  the  neighboring  circuits,  and  not  unfrequently  called 
to  remote  parts  of  the  province.  In  1770,  his  professional  firmness 
was  brought  to  a  test  of  some  severity,  on  the  application  of  the 
British  officers  and  soldiers  to  undertake  their  defence,  on  the  trial  of 
the  indictments  found  against  them  on  account  of  the  transactions  of 
the  memorable  fifth  of  March.  He  seems  to  have  thought,  on  this 
occasion,  thai  a  man  can  no  more  abandon  the  proper  duties  of  his 
profession,  than  he  can  abandon  other  duties.  The  event  proved, 
that  as  he  judged  well  for  his  own  reputation,  so  he  judged  well,  also. 
for  the  interest  and  permanent  fame  of  his  country.  The  result  of 
that  trial  proved,  that  notwithstanding  the  high  degree  of  excitement 
then  existing,  in  consequence  ot  the  measures  of  the  British  govern- 


156  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

mcnt,  a  jury  of  Massachusetts  would  not  deprive  the  most  reckless 
enemies,  even  the  officers  of  that  standing  army,  quartered  among 
them,  which  they  so  perfectly  abhorred,  of  any  part  of  that  protection 
which  the  law,  in  its  mildest  and  most  indulgent  interpretation,  afforded 
to  persons  accused  of  crimes. 

Without  pursuing  Mr.  Adams's  professional  course  further,  suffice 
it  to  say,  that  on  the  first  establishment  of  the  judicial  tribunals  under 
the  authority  of  the  state,  in  1776,  he  received  an  offer  of  the  high  and 
responsible  station  of  chief  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court.  But  he  was 
destined  for  another  and  a  different  career.  From  early  life  the  bent 
of  his  mind  was  towards  politics;  a  propensity,  which  the  state  of  the 
times,  if  it  did  not  create,  doubtless  very  much  strengthened.  Public 
subjects  must  have  occupied  the  thoughts  and  filled  up  the  conversa 
tion  in  the  circles  in  which  he  then  moved;  and  the  interesting  ques 
tions,  at  that  time  just  arising,  could  not  but  seize  on  a  mind,  like  his, 
ardent,  sanguine  and  patriotic.  The  letter,  fortunately  preserved, 
written  by  him  at  Worcester  so  early  as  the  I2th  of  October,  1755,  is 
a  proof  of  very  comprehensive  views,  and  uncommon  depth  of  reflec 
tion,  in  a  young  man  not  yet  quite  twenty.  In  this  letter  he  predicted 
the  transfer  of  power,  and  the  establishment  of  a  new  seat  of  empire 
in  America:  he  predicted,  also,  the  increase  of  population  in  the  col 
onies;  and  anticipated  their  naval  distinction,  and  foretold  that  all 
Europe,  combined,  could  not  subdue  them.  All  this  is  said,  not  on  a 
public  occasion,  or  for  effect,  but  in  the  style  of  sober  and  friendly 
correspondence,  as  the  result  of  his  own  thoughts.  "I  sometimes 
retire,"  said  he,  at  the  close  of  the  letter,  "  and,  laying  things  together, 
form  some  reflections,  pleasing  to  myself.  The  produce  of  one  of 
these  reveries  you  have  read  above."  This  prognostication,  so  early 
in  his  own  life,  so  early  in  the  history  of  the  country,  of  independence, 
of  vast  increase  of  numbers,  of  naval  force,  of  such  augmented  power 
as  might  defy  all  Europe,  is  remarkable.  It  is  more  remarkable,  that 
its  author  should  live  to  see  fulfilled  to  the  letter,  what  could  have 
seemed  to  others,  at  the  time,  but  the  extravagance  of  youthful  fancy. 
His  earliest  political  feelings  were  thus  strongly  American;  and  from 
this  ardent  attachment  to  his  native  soil  he  never  departed. 

While  still  living  at  Quincy,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  Mr.  Adams 
was  present,  in  this  town,  on  the  argument  before  the  Supreme  Court, 
respecting  writs  of  assistance,  and  heard  the  celebrated  and  patriotic 
speech  of  James  Otis.  Unquestionably,  that  was  a  masterly  perform 
ance.  No  flighty  declamation  about  liberty,  no  superficial  discussion 
of  popular  topics,  it  was  a  learned,  penetrating,  convincing,  constitu 
tional  argument,  expressed  in  a  strain  of  high  and  resolute  patriotism. 
He  grasped  the  question,  then  pending  between  England  and  her 
colonies,  with  the  strength  of  a  lion;  and  if  he  sometimes  sported,  it 
was  only  because  the  lion  himself  is  sometimes  playful.  Its  success 
appears  to  have  been  as  great  as  his  merits,  and  its  impression  was 
widely  felt.  Mr.  Adams  himself  seems  never  to  have  lost  the  feeling 


D.IXIEL  irEnsTER.  157 

it  produced,  and  to  have  entertained  constantly  the  fullest  conviction 
of  its  important  effects.  "I  do  say,"  he  observes,  "  in  the  most 
solemn  manner,  that  Mr.  Otis's  oration  against  writs  of  assistance 
breathed  into  this  nation  the  breath  of  life." 

In  1765,  Mr.  Adams  laid  before  the  public  what  I  suppose  to  be  his 
first  printed  performance,  except  essays  for  the  periodical  press,  a 
Dissertation  on  the  Canon  and  Feudal  Law.  The  object  of  this  work 
was  to  show  that  our  New  England  ancestors,  in  consenting  to  exile 
themselves  from  their  native  land,  were  actuated,  mainly,  by  the  de 
sire  of  delivering  themselves  from  the  power  of  the  hierarchy,  and 
from  the  monarchical  and  aristocratical  political  systems  of  the  other 
continent;  and  to  make  this  truth  bear  with  effect  on  the  politics  of 
the  times.  Its  tone  is  uncommonly  bold  and  animated,  for  that 
period.  He  calls  on  the  people  not  only  to  defend,  but  to  study  and 
understand  their  rights  and  privileges;  urges  earnestly  the  necessity 
of  diffusing  general  knowledge;  invokes  the  clergy  and  the  bar,  the 
colleges  and  academies,  and  all  others  who  have  the  ability  and  the 
means,  to  expose  the  insidious  designs  of  arbitrary  power,  to  resist 
its  approaches,  and  to  be  persuaded  that  there  is  a  settled  design  on 
foot  to  enslave  all  America.  "Be  it  remembered,"  says  the  author, 
"  that  liberty  must,  at  all  hazards,  be  supported.  We  have  a  right  to 
it,  derived  from  our  Maker.  But  if  we  had  not,  our  fathers  have 
earned  it,  and  bought  it  for  us,  at  the  expense  of  their  ease,  their  es 
tate,  their  pleasure,  and  their  blood.  And  liberty  cannot  be  preserved 
without  a  general  knowledge  among  the  people,  who  have  a  right, 
from  the  frame  of  their  nature,  to  knowledge,  as  their  greal  Creator, 
who  does  nothing  in  vain,  has  given  them  understandings,  and  a  do* 
sir','  to  know;  but  besides  this,  they  have  a  right,  an  undisputublc, 
unalienable,  indefeasible  right  to  that  most  dreaded  and  envied  kind 
of  knowledge,  I  mean  of  the  character  and  conduct  of  their  rulers. 
Rulers  are  no  more  than  attorneys,  agents,  and  trustees,  of  the  people; 
and  if  the  cause,  the  interest,  and  trust,  is  insidiously  betrayed,  01' 
wantonly  trifled  away,  the  people  have  a  right  to  revoke  the  authority 
that  they  themselves  have  deputed,  and  to  constitute  other  and  bettef 
agents,  attorneys  and  trustees." 

The  citizens  of  this  town  conferred  on  Mr.  Adams  his  first  political 
distinction,  and  clothed  him  with  his  first  political  trust,  by  electing 
him  one  of  their  representatives,  in  1770.  Before  this  time  he  had 
become  extensively  known  throughout  the  province,  as  well  by  the 
part  he  had  acted  in  relation  to  public  affairs,  as  by  the  exercise  of  his 
professional  ability.  He  was  among  those  who  took  the  deepest  in 
terest  in  the  controversy  with  England,  and  whether  in  or  out  of  the 
legislature,  his  time  and  talents  were  alike  devoted  to  the  cause.  In 
the  years  1773  and  1774,  he  was  chosen  a  counsellor,  by  the  members 
of  the  General  Court,  but  rejected  by  governor  Hutchinson,  in  the 
former  of  those  years,  an  i  by  governor  Gage  in  the  latter. 

The  time  was  now  at  hand,  however,  when  the  affairs  of  the  colo- 


158  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

nies  urgently  demanded  united  councils.  An  open  rupture  with  the 
parent  state  appeared  inevitable,  and  it  was  but  the  dictate  of  prudence, 
that  those  who  were  united  by  a  common  interest  and  a  common  dan 
ger,  should  protect  that  interest,  and  guard  against  that  danger,  by 
united  efforts.  A  general  congress  of  delegates  from  all  the  colonies 
having  been  proposed  and  agreed  to,  the  House  of  Representatives, 
on  the  i yth  of  June,  1774,  elected  James  Bowdoin,  Thomas  Gushing, 
Samuel  Adams,  John  Adams,  and  Robert  Treat  Paine,  delegates  from 
Massachusetts.  This  appointment  was  made  at  Salem,  where  the 
general  court  had  been  convened  by  governor  Gage,  in  the  last  hour 
of  the  existence  of  a  House  of  Representatives  under  the  provincial 
charter.  While  engaged  in  this  important  business,  the  governor, 
having  been  informed  of  what  was  passing,  sent  his  secretary  with  a 
message  dissolving  the  general  court.  The  secretary,  finding  the 
door  locked,  directed  the  messenger  to  go  in  and  inform  the  speaker 
that  the  secretary  was  at  the  door  with  a  message  from  the  governor. 
The  messenger  returned,  and  informed  the  secretary  that  the  orders 
of  the  house  were  that  the  doors  should  be  kept  fast;  whereupon  the 
secretary  soon  after  read  a  proclamation,  dissolving  the  general  court 
upon  the  stairs.  Thus  terminated,  forever,  the  actual  exercise  of  the 
political  power  of  England  in  or  over  Massachusetts.  The  four  last- 
named  delegates  accepted  their  appointments,  and  took  their  seats 
in  Congress,  the  first  day  of  its  meeting,  September  5,  1774,  in 
Philadelphia. 

The  proceedings  of  the  first  Congress  are  well  known,  and  have 
been  universally  admired.  It  is  in  vain  that  we  would  look  for  su 
perior  proofs  of  wisdom,  talent  and  patriotism.  Lord  Chatham  said, 
that,  for  himself  he  must  declare,  that  he  had  studied  and  admired  the 
free  states  of  antiquity,  the  master  states  of  the  world,  but  that,  for 
solidity  of  reasoning,  force  of  sagacity,  and  wisdom  of  conclusion,  no 
body  of  men  could  stand  in  preference  to  this  Congress.  It  is  hardly 
inferior  praise  to  say,  that  no  production  of  that  great  man  himself 
can  be  pronounced  superior  to  several  of  the  papers  published  as  the 
proceedings  of  this  most  able,  most  firm,  most  patriotic  assembly. 
There  is,  indeed,  nothing  superior  to  them  in  the  range  of  political 
disquisition.  They  not  only  embrace,  illustrate,  and  enforce  every 
thing  which  political  philosophy,  the  love  of  liberty,  and  the  spirit  of 
free  inquiry,  had  antecedently  produced,  but  they  add  new  and  strik 
ing  views  of  their  own,  and  apply  the  whole,  with  irresistible  force,  in 
support  of  the  cause  which  had  drawn  them  together. 

Mr.  Adams  was  a  constant  attendant  on  the  deliberations  of  this 
body,  and  bore  an  active  part  in  its  important  measures.  He  was  of 
the  committee  to  state  the  rights  of  the  colonies,  and  of  that  also  which 
reported  the  address  to  the  king. 

As  it  was  in  the  continental  congress,  fellow-citizens,  that  those 
whose  deaths  have  given  rise  to  this  occasion,  were  first  brought  to- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  159 

gether,  and  called  on  to  unite  their  industry  and  their  ability  in  the 
service  of  the  country,  let  us  now  turn  to  the  other  of  these  distin 
guished  men,  and  take  a  brief  notice  of  his  life,  up  to  the  period  when 
h?  appeared  within  the  walls  of  congress. 

Thomas  Jefferson,  descended  from  ancestors  who  had  been  settled 
in  Virginia  for  some  generations,  was  born  near  the  spot  on  which  he 
died,  in  the  county  of  Albemarle,  on  the  2d  of  April  (old  style),  1743. 
His  youthful  studies  were  pursued  in  the  neighborhood  of  his  father's 
residence,  until  he  was  removed  to  the  college  of  William  and  Mary, 
the  highest  honors  of  which  he  in  due  time  received.  Having  left  the 
college  with  reputation,  he  applied  himself  to  the  study  of  the  law, 
under  the  tuition  of  George  Wythe,  one  of  the  highest  judicial  names 
of  which  that  state  can  boast.  At  an  early  age  he  was  elected  a  mem 
ber  of  the  legislature,  in  which  he  had  no  sooner  appeared  than  he 
distinguishd  himself  by  knowledge,  capacity,  and  promptitude. 

Mr.  Jefferson  appears  to  have  been  imbued  with  an  early  love  of 
letters  and  science,  and  to  have  cherished  a  strong  disposition  to  pur 
sue  these  objects.  To  the  physical  sciences,  especially,  and  to  ancient 
classic  literature,  he  is  understood  to  have  had  a  warm  attach 
ment,  and  never  entirely  to  have  lost  sight  of  them,  in  the  midst 
of  the  busiest  occupations.  But  the  times  were  times  for  action, 
rather  than  for  contemplation.  The  country  was  to  be  defended, 
and  to  be  saved,  before  it  could  be  enjoyed.  Philosophic  leisure 
and  literary  pursuits,  and  even  the  objects  of  professional  at 
tention,  were  all  necessarily  postponed  to  the  urgent  calls  of  the 
public  service.  The  exigency  of  the  country  made  the  same  demand 
on  Mr.  Jefferson  that  it  made  on  others  who  had  the  ability  and  the 
disposition  to  serve  it;  and  he  obeyed  the  call — thinking  and  feeling, 
in  this  respect,  with  the  great  Roman  orator;  Quis  enim  est  tarn  cupi- 
dus  in  perspicienda  cognoscendaque  reruni  natura,  nt,  si  ei  tmctanti  ccn- 
teniplantique  tes  cognitione  dignissimas  subito  sit  allatuni  periculum 
discriincnque  patritc,  cui  subvenire  opitu la riqtte  possif,  non  ilia  omnia  re- 
linquat  atque  abjiciat^  etiam  si  dinumerare  se  stellas^  ant  mctiri  mundi 
magnitudinem  posse  arbitretur? 

Entering,  with  all  his  heart,  into  the  cause  of  liberty,  his  ability, 
patriotism,  and  power  with  the  pen,  naturally  drew  upon  him  a  large 
participation  in  the  most  important  concerns.  Wherever  he  was, 
there  was  found  a  soul  devoted  to  the  cause,  power  to  defend  and 
maintain  it,  and  willingness  to  incur  all  its  hazards.  In  1774,  he  pub 
lished  a  Summary  View  of  the  Rights  of  British  America,  a  valuable 
production  among  those  intended  to  show  the  dangers  which  threat 
ened  the  liberties  of  the  country,  and  to  encourage  the  people  in  their 
defence.  In  June,  1775,  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  continental 
congress,  as  successor  to  Peyton  Randolph,  who  had  retired  on  ac 
count  of  ill  health,  and  took  his  «eat  in  that  body  on  the  2ist  of  the 
same  month. 


160  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

And  now,  fellow-citizens,  without  pursuing  the  biography  of  these 
illustrious  men  further,  for  the  present,  let  us  turn  our  attention  to  the 
most  prominent  act  of  their  lives,  their  participation  in  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence. 

Preparatory  to  the  introduction  of  that  important  measure,  a  com 
mittee,  at  the  head  of  which  was  Mr.  Adams,  had  reported  a  resolution, 
which  Congress  adopted  the  loth  of  May,  recommending,  in  sub 
stance,  to  all  the  colonies  which  had  not  already  established  govern 
ments  suited  to  the  exigencies  of  their  affairs,  to  adopt  such  government, 
as  would,  in  the  opinion  of  the  representatives  of  the  people,  best 
conduce  to  the  happiness  and  safety  of  their  constituents  in  particular, 
and  America  in  general. 

This  significant  vote  was  soon  followed  by  the  direct  proposition, 
which  Richard  Henry  Lee  had  the  honor  to  submit  to  Congress,  by 
resolution,  on  the  yth  day  of  June.  The  published  journal  does  not 
expressly  state  it,  but  there  is  no  doubt,  I  suppose,  that  this  resolution 
was  in  the  same  Avords,  when  originally  submitted  by  Mr.  Lee,  as 
when  finally  passed.  Having  been  discussed,  on  Saturday  the  8th, 
and  Monday  the  loth  of  June,  this  resolution  was  on  the  last-men 
tioned  day  postponed,  for  further  consideration,  to  the  1st  day  of 
July;  and,  at  the  same  time,  it  was  voted,  that  a  committee  be  ap 
pointed  to  prepare  a  declaration,  to  the  effect  of  the  resolution.  This 
committee  was  elected  by  ballot,  on  the  following  day,  and  consisted 
of  Thomas  Jefferson,  John  Adams,  Benjamin  Franklin,  Roger  Sher 
man,  and  Robert  R.  Livingston. 

It  is  usual,  when  committees  are  elected  by  ballot,  that  their  mem 
bers  are  arranged  in  order,  according  to  the  number  of  votes  which 
each  has  received;  Mr.  Jefferson,  therefore,  had  received  the  highest, 
and  Mr.  Adams  the  next  highest  number  of  votes.  The  difference  is 
said  to  have  been  but  of  a  single  vote.  Mr.  Jefferson  and  Mr.  Adams, 
standing  thus  at  the  head  of  the  committee,  were  requested  by  the 
other  members  to  act  as  a  sub-committee,  to  prepare  the  draught;  and 
Mr.  Jefferson  drew  up  the  paper.  The  original  draught,  as  brought 
by  him  from  his  study,  and  submitted  to  the  other  members  of  the 
committee,  with  interlineations  in  the  hand-writing  of  Dr.  Franklin, 
and  others  in  that  of  Mr.  Adams,  was  in  Mr.  Jefferson's  possession 
at  the  time  of  his  death.  The  merit  of  this  paper  is  Mr.  Jefferson's. 
Some  changes  were  made  in  it,  on  the  suggestion  of  other  members 
of  the  committee,  and  others  by  Congress  while  it  was  under  discus 
sion;  but  none  of  them  altered  the  tone,  the  frame,  the  arrangement, 
or  the  general  character  of  the  instrument.  As  a  composition,  the 
declaration  is  Mr.  Jefferson's.  It  is  the  production  of  his  mind,  and 
the  high  honor  of  it  belongs  to  him,  clearly  and  absolutely. 

It  has  sometimes  been  said,  as  if  it  were  a  derogation  from  the 
merits  of  this  paper,  that  it  contains  nothing  new;  that  it  only  states 
grounds  of  proceeding,  and  presses  topics  of  argument,  which  had 


D  AX  I  EL    WEBSTER.  161 

often  been  stated  and  pressed  before.  But  it  was  not  the  object  of 
the  declaration  to  produce  anything  new.  It  was  not  to  invent  rea 
sons  for  independence,  but  to  state  those  which  governed  the  Con 
gress.  For  great  and  sufficient  causes,  it  was  proposed  to  declare  in 
dependence;  and  the  proper  business  of  the  paper  to  be  drawn,  was 
to  set  forth  those  causes,  and  justify  the  authors  of  the  measure,  in 
any  event  of  fortune,  to  the  country,  and  to  posterity.  The  cause  of 
American  independence,  moreover,  was  now  to  be  presented  to  the 
world,  in  such  a  manner,  if  it  might  so  be,  as  to  engage  its  sympathy, 
to  command  its  respect,  to  attract  its  admiration;  and  in  an  assembly 
of  most  able  and  distinguished  men,  Thomas  Jefferson  had  the  high 
honor  of  being  the  selected  advocate  of  this  cause.  To  say  that  he 
performed  his  great  work  well,  would  be  doing  him  injustice.  To  say 
that  he  did  excellently  well,  admirably  well,  would  be  inadequate  and 
halting  praise.  Let  us  rather  say,  that  he  so  discharged  the  duty  as 
signed  him,  that  all  Americans  may  well  rejoice  that  the  work  of 
drawing  the  title-deed  of  their  liberties  devolved  on  his  hands. 

With  all  its  merits,  there  are  those  who  have  thought  that  there  was 
one  thing  in  the  declaration  to  be  regretted;  and  that  is,  the  asperity 
and  apparent  anger  with  which  it  speaks  of  the  person  of  the  king; 
the  industrious  ability  with  which  it  accumulates  and  charges  upon 
him  all  the  injuries  which  the  colonies  had  suffered  from  the  mother 
country.  Possibly  some  degree  of  injustice,  now  or  hereafter,  at 
home  or  abroad,  may  be  done  to  the  character  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  if 
this  part  of  the  declaration  be  not  placed  in  its  proper  light.  Anger 
or  resentment,  certainly,  much  less  personal  reproach  and  invective, 
could  not  properly  find  place  in  a  composition  of  such  high  dignity, 
and  of  such  lofty  and  permanent  character. 

A  single  reflection  on  the  original  ground  of  dispute,  between  Eng 
land  and  the  colonies,  is  sufficient  to  remove  any  unfavorable  impres 
sion,  in  this  respect. 

The  inhabitants  of  all  the  colonies,  while  colonies,  admitted  them 
selves  bound  by  their  allegiance  to  the  king;  but  they  disclaimed, 
altogether,  the  authority  of  Parliament;  holding  themselves,  in  this 
respect,  to  resemble  the  condition  of  Scotland  and  Ireland,  before  the 
respective  unions  of  those  kingdoms  with  England,  when  they  ac 
knowledged  allegiance  to  the  same  king,  but  each  had  its  separate 
legislature.  The  tie,  therefore,  which  our  revolution  was  to  break, 
did  not  subsist  between  us  and  the  British  Parliament,  or  between  us 
and  the  British  government  in  the  aggregate,  but  directly  between  us 
and  the  king  himself.  The  colonies  had  never  admitted  themselves 
subject  to  Parliament.  That  was  precisely  the  point  of  the  original 
controversy.  They  had  uniformly  denied  that  Parliament  had  au 
thority  to  make  laws  for  them.  There  was,  therefore,  no  subjection 
to  Parliament  to  be  thrown  off.  But  allegiance  to  the  king  did  exist, 
and  had  been  uniformly  acknowledged;  and  down  to  1775,  the  most 


1 62  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

solemn  assurances  had  been  given  that  it  was  not  intended  to  break 
that  allegiance,  or  to  throw  it  off.  Therefore,  as  the  direct  object  and 
only  effect  of  the  declaration,  according  to  the  principles  on  which  the 
controversy  had  been  maintained,  on  our  part,  was  to  sever  the  tie  of 
allegiance  which  bound  us  to  the  king,  it  was  properly  and  necessarily 
founded  on  acts  of  the  Crown  itself,  as  its  justifying  causes.  Parlia 
ment  is  not  so  much  as  mentioned  in  the  whole  instrument.  When 
odious  and  oppressive  acts  are  referred  to,  it  is  done  by  charging  the 
king  with  confederating  with  others  "  in  pretended  acts  of  legislation;" 
the  object  being,  constantly,  to  hold  the  king  himself  directly  responsi 
ble  for  those  measures  which  were  the  grounds  of  separation.  Even 
the  precedent  of  the  English  revolution  was  not  overlooked,  and  in 
this  case,  as  well  as  in  that,  occasion  was  found  to  say  that  the  king 
had  abdicated  the  government.  Consistency  with  the  principles  upon 
which  resistance  began,  and  with  all  the  previous  state  papers  issued 
by  Congress,  required  that  the  declaration  should  be  bottomed  on  the 
misgovernment  of  the  king;  and  therefore  it  was  properly  framed 
with  that  aim  and  to  that  end.  The  king  was  known,  indeed,  to  have 
acted,  as  in  other «cases,  by  his  ministers,  and  with  his  parliament; 
but  as  our  ancestors  had  never  admitted  themselves  subject  either  to 
ministers  or  to  Parliament,  there  were  no  reasons  to  be  given  for  now 
refusing  obedience  to  their  authority.  This  clear  and  obvious  necessity 
of  founding  the  declaration  on  the  misconduct  of  the  king  himself, 
gives  to  that  instrument  its  personal  application,  and  its  character  of 
direct  and  pointed  accusation. 

The  declaration  having  been  reported  to  Congress  by  the  com 
mittee,  the  resolution  itself  was  taken  up  and  debated  on  the  first  day 
of  July,  and  again  on  the  second,  on  which  last  day  it  was  agreed  to 
and  adopted  in  these  words: — 

"  Resolved,  that  these  united  colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be 
free  and  independent  states;  that  they  are  absolved  from  all  allegiance 
to  the  British  Crown,  and  that  all  political  connection  between  them 
and  the  state  of  Great  Britain  is,  and  ought  to  be,  totally  dissolved." 

Having  thus  passed  the  main  resolution,  Congress  proceeded  to 
consider  the  reported  draught  of  the  declaration.  It  was  discussed  on 
the  second,  and  third,  and  fourth  days  of  the  month,  in  Committee  of 
the  Whole;  and  on  the  last  of  those  days,  being  reported  from  that 
committee,  it  received  the  final  approbation  and  sanction  of  Congress. 
It  was  ordered,  at  the  same  time,  that  copies  be  sent  to  the  several 
states,  and  that  it  be  proclaimed  at  the  head  of  the  army.  The 
declaration,  thus  published,  did  not  bear  the  names  of  the  members, 
for  as  yet  it  had  not  been  signed  by  them.  It  was  authenticated,  like 
other  papers  of  the  Congress,  by  the  signatures  of  the  president  and 
secretary.  On  the  iQth  of  July,  as  appears  by  the  secret  journal, 
Congress  "  resolved  that  the  dccaration,  passed  on  the  fourth,  be 
fairly  engrossed  on  parchment,  with  the  title  and  style  of  '  The  unaai- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  163 

mous  declaration  of  the  Thirteen  United  States  of  America,'  and  that  the 
same,  when  engrossed,  be  signed  by  every  member  of  Congress;"  and, 
on  the  second  day  of  August  following,  "  the  declaration,  being  en 
grossed  and  compared  at  the  table,  was  signed  by  the  members."  So 
that  it  happens,  fellow-citizens,  that  we  pay  these  honors  to  their 
memory  on  the  anniversary  of  that  day  on  which  these  great  men 
actually  signed  their  names  to  the  declaration.  The  declaration  was 
ihus  made — that  is,  it  passed,  and  was  adopted  as  an  act  of  Con 
gress — on  the  fourth  of  July;  it  was  then  signed  and  certified  by 
the  president  and  secretary,  like  other  acts.  The  fourth  of  July, 
therefore,  is  the  anniversary  of  the  declaration;  but  the  signatures  of 
the  members  present  were  made  to  it,  it  being  then  engrossed  on  parch 
ment,  on  the  second  day  of  August.  Absent  members  afterwards 
signed,  as  they  came  in;  and  indeed  it  bears  the  names  of  some  who 
were  not  chosen  members  of  Congress  until  after  the  fourth  of  July. 
The  interest  belonging  to  the  subject  will  be  sufficient,  I  hope,  to 
justify  these  details. 

The  Congress  of  the  Revolution,  fellow-citizens,  sat  with  closed 
doors,  and  no  report  of  its  debates  was  ever  taken.  The  discussion, 
therefore,  which  accompanied  this  great  measure,  has  never  been  pre 
served,  except  in  memory  and  by  tradition.  But  it  is,  I  believe,  doing 
no  injustice  to  others  to  say,  that  the  general  opinion  was,  and  uni 
formly  has  been,  that  in  debate,  on  the  side  of  independence,  John 
Adams  had  no  equal.  The  great  author  of  the  declaration  himself 
has  expressed  that  opinion  uniformly  and  strongly.  "John  Adams," 
said  he,  in  the  hearing  of  him  who  has  now  the  honor  to  address  you, 
"  John  Adams  was  our  colossus  on  the  floor.  Not  graceful,  not 
eloquent,  not  always  fluent,  in  his  public  addresses,  he  yet  came  out 
with  a  power,  both  of  thought  and  of  expression,  which  moved  us  from 
our  seats." 

For  the  part  which  he  was  here  to  perform,  Mr.  Adams  was  doubt 
less  eminently  fitted.  He  possessed  a  bold  spirit,  which  disregarded 
danger,  and  a  sanguine  reliance  on  the  goodness  of  the  cause,  and  the 
virtues  of  the  people,  which  led  him  to  overlook  all  obstacles.  His 
character,  too,  had  been  formed  in  troubled  times.  He  had  been 
rocked  in  the  early  storms  of  the  controversy,  and  had  acquired  a 
decision  and  a  hardihood  proportioned  to  the  severity  of  the  discipline 
which  he  had  undergone. 

He  not  only  loved  the  American  cause  devoutly,  but  had  studied 
and  understood  it.  It  was  all  familiar  to  him.  He  had  tried  his 
powers,  on  the  questions  which  it  involved,  often,  and  in  various  ways; 
and  had  brought  to  their  consideration  whatever  of  argument  or  illus 
tration  the  history  of  his  own  country,  the  history  of  England,  or  the 
stores  of  ancient  or  of  legal  learning  could  furnish.  Every  grievance 
enumerated  in  the  long  catalogue  of  the  declaration  had  been  the  sub 
ject  of  his  discussion,  and  the  object  of  his  remonstrance  and  reproba- 


1 64  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

tion.  From  1760,  the  colonies,  the  rights  of  the  colonies,  the  liberties 
of  the  colonies,  and  the  wrongs  inflicted  on  the  colonies,  had  engaged 
his  constant  attention;  and  it  has  surprised  those,  who  have  had  the 
opportunity  of  observing,  with  what  full  remembrance,  and  with  what 
prompt  recollection,  he  could  refer,  in  his  extreme  old  age,  to  every 
act  of  Parliament  affecting  the  colonies,  distinguishing  and  stating  their 
respective  titles,  sections  and  provisions — and  to  all  the  colonial 
memorials,  remonstrances  and  petitions,  with  whatever  else  belonged 
to  the  intimate  and  exact  history  of  the  times  from  that  year 
to  1775.  It  was,  in  his  own  judgment,  between  these  years,  that 
the  American  people  came  to  a  full  understanding  and  thorough 
knowledge  of  their  rights,  and  to  a  fixed  resolution  of  maintaining  them; 
and  bearing  himself  an  active  part  in  all  important  transactions — the 
controversy  with  England  being  then,  in  effect,  the  business  of  his  life 
— facts,  dates,  and  particulars,  made  an  impression  which  was  never 
effaced.  He  was  prepared,  therefore,  by  education  and  discipline,  as 
well  as  by  natural  talent  and  natural  temperament,  for  the  part  which 
he  was  now  to  act. 

The  eloquence  of  Mr.  Adams  resembled  his  general  character,  and 
formed,  indeed,  a  part  of  it.  It  was  bold,  manly  and  energetic;  anil 
such  the  crisis  required.  When  public  bodies  are  to  be  addressed  on 
momentous  occasions,  when  great  interests  are  at  stake  and  strong 
passions  excited,  nothing  is  valuable,  in  speech,  farther  than  it  is  con 
nected  with  high  intellectual  and  moral  endowments.  Clearness, 
force,  and  earnestness,  are  the  qualities  which  produce  conviction. 
True  eloquence,  indeed,  does  not  consist  in  speech.  It  cannot  be 
brought  from  far.  Labor  and  learning  may  toil  for  it;  but  they  will 
toil  in  vain.  Words  and  phrases  may  be  marshalled  in  every  way; 
but  they  cannot  compass  it.  It  must  exist  in  the  man,  in  the  subject, 
and  in  the  occasion.  Affected  passion,  intense  expression,  the  pomp 
of  declamation,  all  may  aspire  after  it — they  cannot  reach  it  It 
comes,  if  it  come  at  all,  like  the  outbreaking  of  a  fountain  from  the 
earth,  or  the  bursting  forth  of  volcanic  fires,  with  spontaneous,  origi 
nal,  native  force.  The  graces  taught  in  the  schools,  the  costly  orna 
ments,  and  studied  contrivances  of  speech,  shock  and  disgust  men, 
when  their  own  lives,  and  the  fate  of  their  wives,  their  children,  and 
their  country,  hang  on  the  decision  of  the  hour.  Then,  words  have 
lost  their  power,  rhetoric  is  vain,  and  all  elaborate  oratory  contempti- 
l)le.  Even  genius  itself  then  feels  rebuked  and  subdued,  as  in  the  pres 
ence  of  higher  qualities.  Then,  patriotism  is  eloquent;  then  self- 
devotion  is  eloquent.  The  clear  conception,  outrunning  the  deduc 
tions  of  logic, — the  high  purpose, — the  firm  resolve, — the  dauntless 
spirit,  speaking  on  the  tongue,  beaming  from  the  eye,  informing  every 
feature,  and  urging  the  whole  man  onward,  right  onward,  to  his  ob 
ject, — this,  this  is  eloquence;  or,  rather,  it  is  something  greater  and 
higher  than  all  eloquence, — it  is  action,  noble,  sublime,  godlike  action 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  165 

! 

In  July,  1776,  the  controversy  had  passed  the  stage  of  argument. 
An  appeal  had  been  made  to  force,  and  opposing  armies  were  in  the 
field.  Congress  then,  was  to  decide  whether  the  tie  which  had  so  long 
bound  us  to  the  parent  state,  was  to  be  severed  at  once,  and  severed 
forever.  All  the  colonies  had  signified  their  resolution  to  abide  by 
this  decision,  and  the  people  looked  for  it  with  the  most  intense 
anxiety.  And  surely,  fellow-citizens,  never,  never  were  men  called 
to  a  more  important  political  deliberation.  If  we  contemplate  it  from 
the  point  where  they  then  stood,  no  question  could  be  more  full  of  in 
terest;  if  we  look  at  it  now,  and  judge  of  its  importance  by  its  effects, 
it  appears  in  still  greater  magnitude. 

Let  us,  then,  bring  before  us  the  assembly,  which  was  about  to 
decide  a  question  thus  big  with  the  fate  of  empire.  Let  us  open  their 
doors,  and  look  in  upon  their  deliberations.  Let  us  survey  the 
anxious  and  care-worn  countenances — let  us  hear  the  firm-toned  voices 
of  this  band  of  patriots. 

Hancock  presides  over  this  solemn  sitting;  and  one  of  those  not  yet 
prepared  to  pronounce  for  absolute  independence,  is  on  the  floor,  and 
is  urging  his  reasons  for  dissenting  from  the  declaration. 

"  Let  us  pause!  This  step,  once  taken,  cannot  be  retraced.  This 
resolution,  once  passed,  will  cut  off  all.  hope  of  reconciliation.  If 
success  attend  the  arms  of  England,  we  shall  then  be  no  longer  colonies, 
with  charters,  and  with  privileges.  These  will  all  be  forfeited  by  this 
act;  and  we  shall  be  in  the  condition  of  other  conquered  people — at  the 
mercy  of  the  conquerors.  For  ourselves,  we  may  be  ready  to  run  the 
hazard;  but  are  we  ready  to  carry  the  country  to  that  length? — Is 
success  so  probable  as  to  justify  it?  Where  is  the  military,  where  the 
naval,  power,  by  which  we  are  to  resist  the  whole  strength  of  the  arm 
of  England  ?  for  she  will  exert  that  strength  to  the  utmost.  Can  we 
rely  on  the  constancy  and  perseverance  of  the  people? — or  will  they 
not  act  as  the  people  of  other  countries  have  acted,  and,  wearied  with  a 
long  war,  submit  in  the  end,  to  a  worse  oppression?  While  we  stand 
on  our  old  ground,  and  insist  on  redress  of  grievances,  we  know  we  are 
right,  and  are  not  answerable  for  consequences.  Nothing,  then,  can 
be  imputable  to  us.  But  if  we  now  change  our  object,  carry  our  pre 
tensions  farther,  and  set  up  for  absolute  independence,  we  shall  lose 
the  sympathy  of  mankind.  We  shall  no  longer  be  defending  what  we 
possess,  but  struggling  for  something  which  we  never  did  possess,  and 
which  we  have  solemnly  and  uniformly  disclaimed  all  intention  of  pur 
suing,  from  the  very  outset  of  the  troubles.  Abandoning  thus  our  old 
ground,  of  resistance  only  to  arbitrary  acts  of  oppression,  the  nations 
will  believe  the  whole  to  have  been  mere  pretence,  and  they  will  look 
on  us,  not  as  injured,  but  as  ambitious  subjects.  I  shudder  before  this 
responsibility.  It  will  be  on  us,  if,  relinquishing  the  ground  we  have 
stood  on  so  long,  and  stood  on  so  safely,  we  now  proclaim  independence, 
and  carry  on  the  war  for  that  object,  while  these  cities  burn,  these 


1 66  A  Ml'.Rl  CA  N  PA  1  'RIO  7 7SM. 

pleasant  fields  whiten  and  bleach  witli  tlu:  bones  of  their  owners,  and 
these  streams  run  blood.  It  will  be  upon  us,  it.  will  be  upon  us,  if 
falling  to  maintain  this  unseasonable  and  ill-judged  declaration,  a 
Sterner  despotism,  maintained  !>y  military  power,  shall  be  established 
over  our  posterity,  when  we  ourselves,  given  up  by  an  exhausted,  a 
harassed,  a  misled  people,  shall  have  expiated  our  rashness  and  atoned 
for  our  presumption  on  the  scaffold." 

It  was  for  Mr.  Adams  to  reply  to  arguments  like  these.  We  know 
his  opinions,  and  we  know  his  character.  He  would  commence  with 
his  accustomed  directness  and  earnestn;  ss. 

"Sink  or  swim,  live  or  die,  survive  or  perish,  I  give  my  hand  and 
my  heart  to  this  vote.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  in  the  beginning  we 
aimed  not  at  independence.  But  there's  a  divinity  which  shapes  our 
ends.  The  injustice  of  England  has  driven  us  to  arms;  and,  blinded 
to  her  own  interest,  for  our  good,  she  LJS  obstinately  persisted,  till 
independence  is  now  within  our  grasp.  \Ve  have  but  to  reach  forth 
to  it,  and  it  is  ours.  Why,  then,  should  we  defer  the  declaration  ? 
Is  any  man  so  weak  as  now  to  hope  for  a  reconciliation  with  England, 
which  shall  leave  either  safety  to  the  country  and  its  liberties,  or 
safety  to  his  own  life  and  his  own  honor?  Are  not  you,  sir,  who  sit 
in  that  chair, — is  not  he,  our  venerable  colleague  near  you, — are  you 
not  both  already  the  proscribed  and  predestined  objects  of  punish 
ment  and  of  vengeance  ?  Cut  off  from  all  hope  of  royal  clemency ;  what 
are  you,  what  can  you  be,  while  the  power  of  England  remains,  but 
outlaws?  If  we  postpone  independence,  do  we  mean  to  carry  on,  or 
to  give  up,  the  war?  Do  we  mean  to  submit  to  the  measures  of  Par 
liament,  Boston  port-bill  and  all  ?  Do  we  mean  to  submit,  and  con 
sent  that  we  ourselves  shall  be  ground  to  powder,  and  our  country 
and  its  rights  trodden  down  in  the  dust?  I  know  we  do  riot  mean  to 
submit.  We  never  shall  submit.  Do  we  intend  to  violate  that  most 
solemn  obligation  ever  entered  into  by  men — that  plighting,  before 
God,  of  our  sacred  honor  to  Washington,  when,  putting  him  forth  to 
incur  the  dangers  of  war,  as  well  as  the  political  hazards  of  the  times, 
we  promised  to  adhere  to  him,  in  every  extremity,  with  our  fortunes 
and  our  lives?  I  know  there  is  not  a  man  here,  who  would  not  rather 
see  a  general  conflagration  sweep  over  the  land,  or  an  earthquake 
sink  it,  than  one  jot  or  tittle  of  that  plighted  faith  fall  to  the  ground. 
For  myself,  having,  twelve  months  ago,  in  this  place,  moved  you, 
that  George  Washington  be  appointed  commander  of  the  forces, 
raised  or  to  be  raised,  for  defence  of  American  liberty,  may  my  right 
hand  forget  her  cunning,  and  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my 
mouth,  if  I  hesitate  or  waver  in  the  support  I  give  him.  The  war, 
then,  must  go  on.  We  must  fight  it  through.  And,  if  the  war  must 
go  on,  why  put  off  longer  the  declaration  of  independence?  That 
measure  will  strengthen  us.  It  will  give  us  character  abroad.  The 
nations  will  then  treat  with  as,  which  they  never  can  do  while  we 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  167 

acknowledge  ourselves  subjects  in  arms  against  our  sovereign.  Nay, 
I  maintain  that  England  herself  will  sooner  treat  for  peace  with  us  on 
the  footing  of  independence,  than  consent,  by  repealing  her  acts,  to 
acknowledge  that  her  whole  conduct  towards  us  has  been  a  course  of 
injustice  and  oppression.  Her  pride  will  be  less  wounded,  by  sub 
mitting  to  that  course  of  things,  which  now  predestinates  our  inde 
pendence,  than  by  yielding  the  points  in  controversy  to  her  rebellious 
subjects.  The  former,  she  would  regard  as  the  result  of  fortune;  the 
latter,  she  would  feel  as  her  own  deep  disgrace.  Why,  then — why, 
then,  sir,  do  we  not,  as  soon  as  possible,  change  this  from  a  civil  to  a 
national  war?  And,  since  we  must  fight  it  through,  why  not  put 
ourselves  in  a  state  to  enjoy  all  the  benefits  of  victory,  if  we  gain  the 
victory  ? 

"  If  we  fail,  it  can  be  no  worse  for  us.  But  we  shall  not  fail.  The 
cause  will  raise  up  armies:  the  cause  will  create  navies.  The  people 
— the  people,  if  we  are  true  to  them,  will  carry  us,  and  will  carry 
themselves,  gloriously  through  this  struggle.  I  care  not  how  fickle 
other  people  have  been  found.  I  know  the  people  of  these  colonies, 
and  I  know  that  resistance  to  British  aggression  is  deep  and  settled 
in  their  hearts  and  cannot  be  eradicated.  Every  colony,  indeed,  has 
expressed  its  willingness  to  follow,  if  we  but  take  the  lead.  Sir,  the 
declaration  will  inspire  the  people  with  increased  courage.  Instead  of 
a  long  and  bloody  war  for  restoration  of  privileges,  for  redress  of 
grievances,  for  chartered  immunities,  held  under  a  British  king,  set 
before  them  the  glorious  object  of  entire  independence,  and  it  will 
breathe  into  them  anew  the  breath  of  life.  Read  this  declaration  at 
the  head  of  the  army;  every  sword  will  be  drawn  from  its  scabbard, 
and  the  solemn  vow  uttered,  to  maintain  it,  or  to  perish  on  the  bed  of 
honor.  Publish  it  from  the  pulpit;  religion  will  approve  it,  and  the 
love  of  religious  liberty  will  cling  round  it,  resolved  to  stand  with  it, 
or  fall  with  it.  Send  it  to  the  public  halls;  proclaim  it  there;  let  them 
hear  it,  who  heard  the  first  roar  of  the  enemy's  cannon;  let  them  see 
it,  who  saw  their  brothers  and  their  sons  fall  on  the  field  of  Bunker 
Hill,  and  in  the  streets  of  Lexington  and  Concord,  and  the  very  walls 
will  cry  out  in  its  support. 

"  Sir,  I  know  the  uncertainty  of  human  affairs,  but  I  see,  I  see  clearly, 
through  this  day's  business.  You  and  I,  indeed,  may  rue  it.  We 
may  not  live  to  the  time  when  this  declaration  shall  be  made  good. 
We  may  die;  die,  colonists;  die,  slaves;  die,  it  may  be,.ignominiously 
and  on  the  scaffold.  Be  it  so.  Be  it  so.  If  it  be  the  pleasure  of 
Heaven  that  my  country  shall  require  the  poor  offering  of  my  life, 
the  victim  shall  be  ready,  at  the  appointed  hour  of  sacrifice,  come 
when  that  hour  may.  But,  while  I  do  live,  let  me  have  a  country,  or 
at  least  the  hope  of  a  country,  and  that  a  free  country. 

"  But,  whatever  may  be  our  fate,  be  assured,  be  assured,  that  this 
declaration  will  stand.  It  may  cost  treasure,  and  it  may  cost  blood; 


1 68  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

but  it  will  stand,  and  it  will  richly  compensate  for  both.  Through 
the  thick  gloom  of  the  present  I  see  the  brightness  of  the  future  as 
the  sun  in  heaven.  We  shall  make  this  a  glorious,  an  immorfal  day. 
When  we  are  in  our  graves,  our  children  will  honor  it.  They  will 
celebrate  it  with  thanksgiving,  with  festivity,  with  bonfires  and  illumi 
nations.  On  its  annual  return  they  will  shed  tears,  copious,  gushing 
tears,  not  of  subjection  and  slavery,  not  of  agony  and  distress,  but  of 
exultation,  of  gratitude,  and  of  joy.  Sir,  before  God,  I  believe  the 
hour  has  come.  My  judgment  approves  this  measure,  and  my  whole 
heart  is  in  it.  All  that  I  have,  and  all  that  I  am,  and  all  that  I  hope, 
in  this  life,  I  am  now  ready  here  to  stake  upon  it;  and  I  le^ve  off,  as 
I  began,  that,  live  or  die,  survive  or  perish,  I  am  for  the  declaration. 
It  is  my  living  sentiment,  and,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  it  shall  be  my 
dying  sentiment;  independence  now,  and  independence  forever." 

And  so  that  day  shall  be  honored,  illustrious  prophet  and  patriot! 
so  that  day  shall  be  honored,  and,  as  often  as  it  returns,  thy  renown 
shall  come  along  with  it,  and  the  glory  of  thy  life,  like  the  day  of  thy 
death,  shall  not  fail  from  the  remembrance  of  men. 

It  would  be  unjust,  fellow-citizens,  on  this  occasion,  while  we  ex 
press  our  veneration  for  him  who  is  the  immediate  subject  of  these 
remarks,  were  we  to  omit  a  most  respectful,  affectionate,  and  grateful 
mention  of  those  other  great  mean,  his  colleagues,  who  stood  with 
him,  and,  with  the  same  spirit,  the  same  devotion,  took  part  in  the 
interesting  transaction.  Hancock,  the  proscribed  Hancock,  exiled 
from  his  home  by  a  military  governor,  cut  off,  by  proclamation,  from 
the  mercy  of  the  Crown — Heaven  reserved  for  him  the  distinguished 
honor  of  putting  this  great  question  to  the  vote,  and  of  writing  his 
own  name  first,  and  most  conspicuously,  on  that  parchment  which 
spoke  defiance  to  the  power  of  the  Crown  of  England.  There,  too, 
is  the  name  of  that  other  proscribed  patriot,  Samuel  Adams;  a  man 
who  hungered  and  thirsted  for  the  independence  of  his  country;  who 
thought  the  declaration  halted  and  lingered,  being  himself  not  only 
ready,  but  eager,  for  it,  long  before  it  was  proposed;  a  man  of  the 
deepest  sagacity,  the  clearest  foresight,  and  the  profoundest  judgment 
in  men.  And  there  is  Gerry,  himself  among  the  earliest  and  the  fore 
most  of  the  patriots,  found,  when  the  battle  of  Lexington  summoned 
them  to  common  councils,  by  the  side  of  Warren;  a  man  who  lived  to 
serve  his  country  at  home  and  abroad,  and  to  die  in  the  second  place 
in  the  government.  There,  too,  is  the  inflexible,  the  upright,  the 
Spartan  character,  Robert  Treat  Paine.  He,  also,  lived  to  serve  his 
country  through  the  struggle,  and  then  withdrew  from  her  councils, 
only  that  he  might  give  his  labors  and  his  life  to  his  native  state  in 
another  relation.  These  names,  fellow-citizens,  are  the  treasures  of 
the  commonwealth,  and  they  are  treasures  which  grow  brighter  by 
time. 

It  is  now  necessary  to  resume,  and  to  finish,  with  great  brevity,  the 


DA  XI  EL    WEBSTER.  169 

notice  of  the  lives  of  those  whose  virtues  and  services  we  have  met  to 
commemorate. 

Mr.  Adams  remained  in  Congress  from  its  first  meeting  till  Novem 
ber,  1777,  when  he  was  appointed  minister  to  France.  He  proceeded 
on  that  service,  in  the  February  following,  embarking  in  the  Boston 
frigate,  on  the  shore  of  his  native  town,  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Wallas- 
ton.  The  year  following,  he  was  appointed  commissioner  to  treat  of 
peace  with  England.  Returning  to  the  United  States,  he  was  a  dele 
gate  from  Braintree  in  the  convention  for  framing  the  constitution  of 
this  commonwealth,  in  1780.  At  the  latter  end  of  the  same  year,  he 
again  went  abroad,  in  the  diplomatic  service  of  the  country,  and  was 
employed  at  various  courts,  and  occupied  with  various  negotiations, 
until  1788.  The  particulars  of  these  interesting  and  important  ser 
vices  this  occasion  does  not  allow  time  to  relate.  In  1782  he  con 
cluded  our  first  treaty  with  Holland.  His  negotiations  with  that  re 
public;  his  efforts  to  persuade  the  States-General  to  recognize  our 
independence;  his  incessant  and  indefatigable  exertions  to  represent 
the  American  cause  favorably,  on  the  continent,  and  to  counteract  the 
designs  of  his  enemies,  open  and  secret;  and  his  successful  undertak 
ing  to  obtain  loans,  on  the  credit  of  a  nation  yet  new  and  unknown, — 
are  among  his  most  arduous,  most  useful,  most  honorable  services. 
It  was  his  fortune  to  bear  a  part  in  the  negotiation  for  peace  with 
England,  and,  in  something  more  than  six  years  from  the  declaration 
which  he  had  so  strenuously  supported,  he  had  the  satisfaction  to  see 
the  minister  plenipotentiary  of  the  Crown  subscribe  to  the  instrument 
which  declared  that  his  "Britannic  Majesty  acknowledged  the  United 
States  to  be  free,  sovereign,  and  independent."  In  these  important 
transactions  Mr.  Adams's  conduct  received  the  marked  approbation 
of  Congress  and  of  the  country. 

While  abroad,  in  1787,  he  published  his  Defence  of  the  American 
Constitutions;  a  work  of  merit  and  ability,  though  composed  with  haste, 
on  the  spur  of  a  particular  occasion,  in  the  midst  of  other  occupations, 
and  under  circumstances  not  admitting  of  careful  revision.  The  im 
mediate  object  of  the  work  was  to  counteract  the  weight  of  opinions 
advanced  by  several  popular  European  writers  of  that  day — M.  Turgot, 
the  Abbe  de  Mably,  and  Dr.  Price — at  a  time  when  the  people  of  the 
United  States  were  employed  in  forming  and  revising  their  systems  of 
government. 

Returning  to  the  United  States  in  1788,  he  found  the  new  government 
about  going  into  operation,  and  was  himself  elected  the  first  vice- 
president— a  situation  which  he  filled  with  reputation  for  eight  years, 
at  the  expiration  of  which  he  was  raised  to  the  presidential  chair,  as 
immediate  successor  to  the  immortal  Washington.  In  this  high  station 
he  was  succeeded  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  after  a  memorable  controversy  be 
tween  their  respective  friends,  in  1801;  and  from  that  period  his  man 
ner  of  life  has  been  known  to  all  who  hear  me.  He  has  lived,  for 


1 70  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

five-and-twenty  years,  with  every  enjoyment  that  could  render  old  age 
happy.  Not  inattentive  to  the  occurrences  of  the  times,  political 
cares  have  yet  not  materially,  or  for  any  long  time  disturbed  his  repose. 
In  1820,  he  acted  as  elector  of  president  and  vice-president,  and  in  the 
same  year  we  saw  him,  then  at  the  age  of  eighty-five,  a  member  of  the 
convention  of  this  commonwealth,  called  to  revise  the  constitution. 
Forty  years  before,  he  had  been  one  of  those  who  formed  that  con 
stitution;  and  he  had  now  the  pleasure  of  witnessing  that  there  was 
little  which  the  people  desired  to  change.  Possessing  all  his  faculties  to 
the  end  of  his  long  life,  with  an  unabated  love  of  reading  and  contem 
plation,  in  Ihe  centre  of  interesting  circles  of  friendship  and  affection, 
he  was  blessed,  in  his  retirement,  with  whatever  of  repose  and  felicity 
the  condition  of  man  allows.  He  had,  also,  other  enjoyments.  He 
saw  around  him  that  prosperity  and  general  happiness,  which  had 
been  the  object  of  his  public  cares  and  labors.  No  man  ever  beheld 
more  clearly,  and  for  a  longer  time,  the  great  and  beneficial  effects 
of  the  services  rendered  by  himself  to  his  country.  That  liberty,  which 
he  so  early  defended,  that  independence,  of  which  he  was  so  able  an 
advocate  and  supporter,  he  saw,  we  trust,  firmly  and  securely  estab 
lished.  The  population  of  the  country  thickened  around  him  faster, 
and  extended  wider,  than  his  own  sanguine  predictions  had  antici 
pated;  and  the  wealth,  respectability,  and  power,  of  the  nation  sprang 
up  to  a  magnitude  which  it  is  quite  impossible  he  could  have  expected 
to  witness  in  his  day.  He  lived,  also,  to  behold  those  principles  of 
civil  freedom,  which  had  been  developed,  established,  and  practically 
applied  in  America,  attract  attention,  command  respect,  and  awaken 
imitation,  in  other  regions  of  the  globe;  and  well  might,  and  well  did 
he,  exclaim,  "Where  will  the  consequences  of  the  American  revolu 
tion  end?" 

If  anything  yet  remain  to  fill  this  cup  of  happiness,  let  it  be  added, 
that  he  lived  to  see  a  great  and  intelligent  people  bestow  the  highest 
honor  in  their  gift,  where  he  had  bestowed  his  own  kindest  parental 
affections,  and  lodged  his  fondest  hopes.  Thus  honored  in  life,  thus 
happy  at  death,  he  saw  the  jubilee,  and  he  died;  and  with  the  last 
prayers  which  trembled  on  his  lips,  was  the  fervent  supplication  for 
his  county,  "  independence  forever." 

Mr.  Jefferson,  having  been  occupied,  in  the  years  1778  and  1779,  in 
the  important  service  of  revising  the  laws  of  Virginia,  was  elected 
governor  of  that  state,  as  successor  to  Patrick  Henry,  and  held  the 
situation  when  the  state  was  invaded  by  the  British  arms.  In  1781,  he 
published  his  Notes  on  Virginia,  a  work  which  attracted  attention  in 
Europe  as  well  as  America,  dispelled  many  misconceptions  respecting 
this  continent,  and  gave  its  author  a  place  among  men  distinguished 
for  science.  In  November,  1783,  he  again  took  his  seat  in  the  con 
tinental  congress;  but  in  the  May  following  was  appointed  minister 
plenipotentiary,  to  act  abroad  in  the  negotiation  of  commercial  treaties, 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  171 

with  Dr  Franklin  and  Mr.  Adams.  He  proceeded  to  France,  in 
execution  of  this  mission,  embarking  at  Boston,  and  that  was  the  only 
occasion  on  which  he  ever  visited  this  place.  In  1785,  he  was  ap 
pointed  minister  to  France,  the  duties  of  which  situation  he  continued 
to  perform,  until  October,  1789,  when  he  obtained  leave  to  retire,  just 
on  the  eve  of  that  tremendous  revolution  which  has  so  much  agitated 
the  world,  in  our  times.  Mr.  Jefferson's  discharge  of  his  diplomatic 
duties  was  marked  by  great  ability,  diligence,  and  patriotism,  and 
while  he  resided  at  Paris,  in  one  of  the  most  interesting  periods,  his 
character  for  intelligence,  his  love  of  knowledge,  and  of  the  society  of 
learned  men,  distinguished  him  in  the  highest  circles  of  the  French 
capital.  No  court  in  Europe  had,  at  that  time,  in  Paris,  a  representative 
commanding  or  enjoying  higher  regard,  for  political  knowledge  or  for 
general  attainment,  than  the  minister  of  this  then  infant  republic. 
Immediately  on  his  return  to  his  native  country,  at  the  organization  of 
the  government  under  the  present  constitution,  his  talents  and  ex 
perience  recommended  him  to  president  Washington,  for  the  first  office 
in  his  gift.  He  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  department  of  state. 
In  this  situation,  also,  he  manifested  conspicuous  ability.  His  cor 
respondence  with  the  ministers  of  other  powers  residing  here,  and 
his  instructions  to  our  own  diplomatic  agents  abroad,  are  among  our 
ablest  state-papers.  A  thorough  knowledge  of  the  laws  and  usages  of 
nations,  perfect  acquaintance  with  the  immediate  subject  before  him, 
great  felicity,  and  still  greater  facility,  in  writing,  show  themselves  in 
whatever  effort  his  official  situation  called  on  him  to  make.  It  is  be 
lieved,  by  competent  judges,  that  the  diplomatic  intercourse  of  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  from  the  first  meeting  of  the  con 
tinental  congress  in  1774  to  the  present  time,  taken  together,  would 
not  suffer,  in  respect  to  the  talent  with  which  it  has  been  conducted, 
by  comparison  with  anything  which  other  and  older  states  can  pro 
duce;  and  to  the  attainment  of  this  respectability  and  distinction,  Mr. 
Jefferson  has  contributed  his  full  part. 

On  the  retirement  of  General  Washington  from  the  presidency,  and 
the  election  of  Mr.  Adams  to  that  office,  in  1797,  he  was  chosen  vice- 
jflresident.  While  presiding,  in  this  capacity,  over  the  deliberations  of 
the  Senate,  he  compiled  and  published  a  Manual  of  Parliamentary 
Practice — a  work  of  more  labor  and  more  merit  than  is  indicated  by 
its  size.  It  is  now  received  as  the  general  standard  by  which  proceed 
ings  are  regulated,  not  only  in  both  houses  of  Congress,  but  in  most 
of  the  other  legislative  bodies  in  the  country.  In  1801,  he  was  elected 
president,  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Adams,  and  re-elected  in  1805,  by  a 
vote  approaching  towards  unanimity. 

From  the  time  of  his  final  retirement  from  public  life,  in  1807,  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  lived  as  became  a  wise  man.  Surrounded  by  affectionate  friends, 
his  ardor  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  nndiminished,  with  uncommon 
health,  and  unbroken  spirits,  he  was  able  to  enjoy  largely  the  rational 


172  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

pleasures  of  live,  and  to  partake  in  that  public  prosperity  which  he 
had  so  much  contributed  to  produce.  His  kindness  and  hospitality, 
the  charm  of  his  conversation,  the  ease  of  his  manners,  the  extent  of 
his  acquirements,  and  especially  the  full  store  of  revolutionary  inci 
dents,  which  he  possessed,  and  which  he  knew  when  and  how  to  dis 
pense,  rendered  his  abode  in  a  high  degree  attractive  to  his  admiring 
countrymen;  while  his  high  public  and  scientific  character  drew  to 
wards  him  every  intelligent  and  educated  traveler  from  abroad.  Both 
Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Jefferson  had  the  pleasure  of  knowing  that  the 
respect  which  they  so  largely  received,  was  not  paid  to  their  official 
stations.  They  were  not  men  made  great  by  office;  but  great  men, 
on  whom  the  country  for  its  own  benefit  had  conferred  office.  There 
was  that  in  them  which  office  did  not  give,  and  which  the  relinquishment 
of  office  did  not  and  could  not  take  away.  In  their  retirement,  in  the 
midst  of  their  fellow-citizens,  themselves  private  citizens,  they  enjoyed 
as  high  regard  and  esteem  as  when  filling  the  most  important  places 
of  public  trust. 

There  remained  to  Mr.  Jefferson  yet  one  other  work  of  patriotism 
and  beneficence — the  establishment  of  a  university  in  his  native  state. 
To  this  object  he  devoted  years  of  incessant  and  anxious  attention, 
and  by  the  enlightened  liberality  of  the  legislature  of  Virginia,  and 
the  co-operation  of  other  able  and  zealous  friends,  he  lived  to  see 
it  accomplished.  May  all  success  attend  this  infant  seminary;  and 
may  those  who  enjoy  its  advantages,  as  often  as  their  eyes  shall  rest 
on  the  neighboring  height,  recollect  what  they  OAVC  to  their  disinter 
ested  and  indefatigable  benefactor;  and  may  letters  honor  him  who 
thus  labored  in  the  cause  of  letters. 

Thus  useful,  and  thus  respected,  passed  the  old  age  of  Thomas 
Jefferson.  But  time  was  on  its  ever-ceaseless  wing,  and  was  now 
bringing  the  last  hour  of  this  illustrious  man.  He  saw  its  approach 
with  undisturbed  serenity.  He  counted  the  moments  as  they  passed, 
and  beheld  that  his  last  sands  were  falling.  That  day,  too,  was  at 
hand,  which  he  had  helped  to  make  immortal.  One  wish,  one  hope 
• — if  it  were  not  presumptuous — beat  in  his  fainting  breast.  Could  it 
be  so — might  it  please  God — he  would  desire — once  more — to  see  the 
sun — once  more  to  look  abroad  on  the  scene  around  him,  on  the  great 
day  of  liberty.  Heaven,  in  its  mercy,  fulfilled  that  prayer.  He  saw 
that  sun — he  enjoyed  its  sacred  light — he  thanked  God  for  this  mercy, 
and  bowed  his  aged  head  to  the  grave.  "Felix,  non  vita  tantuin 
claritate,  sed  etiam  opporiunitate  mostis." 

The  last  public  labor  of  Mr.  Jefferson  naturally  suggests  the  expres 
sion  of  the  high  praise  which  is  due,  both  to  him  and  to  Mr.  Adams, 
for  their  uniform  and  zealous  attachment  to  learning,  and  to  the  cause 
of  general  knowledge.  Of  the  advantages  of  learning,  indeed,  and 
of  literary  accomplishments,  their  own  characters  were  striking  recom 
mendations  and  illustrations.  They  were  scholars,  ripe  and  good 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  173 

scholars;  widely  acquainted  with  ancient  as  well  as  modern  literature, 
and  not  altogether  uninstructed  in  the  deeper  sciences.  Their  acquire 
ments,  doubtless,  were  different,  and  so  were  the  particular  objects  of 
their  literary  pursuits;  as  their  tastes  and  characters,  in  these  respects, 
differed  like  those  of  other  men.  Being,  also,  men  of  busy  lives,  with 
great  objects  requiring  action  constantly  before  them,  their  attainments 
in  letters  did  not  become  showy  or  obstrusive.  Yet  I  would  hazard  the 
opinion,  that  if  we  could  now  ascertain  all  the  causes  which  gave  them 
eminence  and  distinction  in  the  midst  of  the  great  men  with  whom 
they  acted,  we  should  find,  not  among  the  least,  their  early  acquisition 
in  literature,  the  resources  which  it  furnished,  the  promptitude  and 
facility  which  it  communicated,  and  the  wide  field  it  opened,  for  an 
alogy  and  illustration;  giving  thus,  on  every  subject,  a  larger  view, 
and  a  broader  range,  as  well  for  discussion  as  for  the  government  of 
their  own  conduct. 

Literature  sometimes,  and  pretensions  to  it  much  oftener,  disgusts,  by 
appearing  to  hang  loosely  on  the  character,  like  something  foreign  or 
extraneous,  not  a  part,  but  an  ill-adjusted  appendage  ;  or  by  seeming 
to  overload  and  weigh  it  down,  by  its  unsightly  bulk,  like  the  produc 
tions  of  bad  taste  in  architecture,  where  there  is  massy  and  cumbrous 
ornament,  without  strength  or  solidity  of  column.  This  has  exposed 
learning,  and  especially  classical  learning,  to  reproach.  Men  have  seen 
that  it  might  exist,  without  mental  superiority,  without  vigor,  without 
good  taste,  and  without  utility.  But,  in  such  cases,  classical  learning 
has  only  not  inspired  natural  talent ;  or,  at  most,  it  has  but  made 
original  feebleness  of  intellect,  and  natural  bluntness  of  perception, 
something  more  conspicuous.  The  question,  after  all,  if  it  be  a  ques 
tion,  is,  whether  literature,  ancient  as  well  as  modern,  does  not  assist  a 
good  understanding,  improve  natural  good  taste,  acid  polished  armor  to 
native  strength,  and  render  its  possessor  not  only  more  capable  of  de 
riving  private  happiness  from  contemplation  and  reflection,  but  more 
accomplished,  also,  for  action  in  the  affairs  of  life,  and  especially  for 
public  action.  Those  whose  memories  we  now  honor,  were  learned 
men  ;  but  their  learning  was  kept  in  its  proper  place,  and  made  sub 
servient  to  the  uses  and  objects  of  life.  They  were  scholars,  not  com 
mon,  nor  superficial  ;  but  their  scholarship  was  so  in  keeping  with  their 
character,  so  blended  and  inwrought,  that  careless  observers,  or  bad 
judges,  not  seeing  an  ostentatious  display  of  it,  might  infer  that  it  did 
not  exist;  forgetting,  or  not  knowing,  that  classical  learning,  in  men 
who  act  in  conspicuous  public  stations,  perform  duties  which  exercise 
the  faculty  of  writing,  or  address  popular,  deliberative,  or  judicial 
bodies,  is  often  felt,  where  it  is  little  seen,  and  sometimes  felt  more  ef 
fectually,  because  it  is  not  seen  at  all. 

But  the  cause  of  knowledge,  in  a  more  enlarged  sense,  the  cause  of 
general  knowledge  and  of  popular  education,  had  no  warmer  friends, 
nor  more  powerful  advocates,  than  Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Jefferson.  On 


174  .  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

tliis  foundation,  they  knew,  the  whole  republican  system  rested  ;  and 
this  great  and  all-important  truth  they  strove  to  impress  by  all  the  means 
in  their  power.  In  the  early  publication,  already  referred  to,  Mr.  Adams 
expresses  the-strong  and  just  sentiment,  that  the  education  of  the  poor  is 
more  important,  even  to  the  rich  themselves,  than  all  their  own  riches. 
On  this  great  truth,  indeed,  is  founded  that  unrivalled,  that  invaluable 
political  and  moral  institution,  our  own  blessing,  and  the  glory  of  our 
fathers — the  New  England  system  of  free  schools. 

As  the  promotion  of  knowledge  had  been  the  object  of  their  regard 
through  life,  so  these  great  men  made  it  the  subject  of  their  testamentary 
bounty.  Mr.  Jefferson  is  understood  to  have  bequeathed  his  library  to 
the  university,  and  that  of  Mr.  Adams  is  bestowed  on  the  inhabitants 
of  Quincy. 

Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Jefferson,  fellow-citizens,  were  successively  presi 
dents  of  the  United  States.  The  comparative  merits  of  their  respective 
administrations  for  a  long  time  agitated  and  divided  public  opinion. 
They  were  rivals,  each  supported  by  numerous  and  powerful  portions  of 
the  people,  for  the  highest  office.  This  contest,  partly  the  cause,  and 
partly  the  consequence,  of  the  long  existence  of  two  great  political  par 
ties  in  the  country,  is  now  part  of  the  history  of  our  government.  We 
may  naturally  regret  that  any  thing  should  have  occurred  to  create  dif 
ference  and  discord  between  those  who  had  acted  harmoniously  and 
efficiently  in  the  great  concerns  of  the  revolution.  But  this  is  not  the 
time,  nor  this  the  occasion,  for  entering  into  the  grounds  of  that  dif 
ference,  or  for  attempting  to  discuss  the  merits  of  the  questions  which  it 
involves.  As  practical  questions,  they  were  canvassed  when  the  meas 
ures  which  they  regarded  were  acted  on  and  adopted  ;  and  as  belonging 
to  history,  the  time  has  not  come  for  their  consideration. 

It  is,  perhaps,  not  wonderful,  that  when  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States  went  first  into  operation,  different  opinions  should  be  entertained 
as  to  the  extent  of  the  powers  conferred  by  it.  Here  was  a  natural 
source  of  diversity  of  sentiment.  It  is  still  less  wonderful,  that  , 
that  event,  about  contemporary  with  our  government,  under  the  present  • 
constitution,  which  so  entirely  shocked  all  Europe,  and  disturbed 
our  relations  with  her  leading  powers,  should  be  thought,  by  different 
men,  to  have  different  bearings  on  our  own  prosperity  ;  and  that  the 
early  measures  adopted  by  our  government,  in  consequence  of  this  new 
state  of  things,  should  be  seen  in  opposite  lights.  It  is  for  the  future 
historian,  when  what  now  remains  of  prejudice  and  misconception  shall 
have  passed  away,  to  state  these  different  opinions,  and  pronounce  im 
partial  judgment.  In  the  mean  time,  all  good  men  rejoice,  and  well 
may  rejoice,  that  the  sharpest  differences  sprung  out  of  measures,  which, 
whether  right  or  wrong,  have  ceased,  with  the  exigencies  that  gave  them 
birth,  and  have  left  no  permanent  effect,  either  on  the  constitution,  or 
on  the  general  prosperity  of  the  country.  This  remark,  I  am  aware, 
may  be  supposed  to  have  its  exception  in  one  measure,  the  alteration  of 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  175 

the  constitution  as  to  the  mode  of  choosing  president ;  but  it  is  true  in 
its  general  application.  Thus  the  course  of  policy  pursued  towards 
France,  in  1798,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  measures  of  commercial  re 
striction,  commenced  in  1807,  on  the  other,  both  subjects  of  warm  and 
severe  opposition,  have  passed  away,  and  left  nothing  behind  them. 
They  were  temporary,  and,  whether  wise  or  unwise,  their  consequences 
were  limited  to  their  respective  occasions.  It  is  equally  clear,  at  the 
same  time,  and  it  is  equally  gratifying,  that  those  measures  of  both 
administrations,  which  were  of  durable  importance,  and  which  drew  ' 
after  them  interesting  and  long-remaining  consequences,  have  received 
general  approbation.  Such  was  the  organization,  or  rather  the  creation, 
of  the  navy,  in  the  administration  of  Mr.  Adams  ;  such  the  acquisition  of 
Louisiana,  in  that  of  Mr.  Jefferson.  The  country,  it  may  safely  be 
added  is  not  likely  to  be  willing  either  to  approve,  or  to  reprobate, 
indiscriminately,  and  in  the  aggregate,  all  the  measures  of  either,  or  of 
any,  administration.  The  dictate  of  reason  and  of  justice  is,  that  hold 
ing  each  one  his  own  sentiments  on  the  points  in  difference,  we  imitate 
the  great  men  themselves,  in  the  forbearance  and  moderation  which  they 
have  cherished,  and  in  the  mutual  respect  and  kindness  which  they  have 
been  so  much  inclined  to  feel  and  to  reciprocate. 

No  men;  fellow-citizens,  ever  served  their  country  with  more  entire 
exemption  from  every  imputation  of  selfish  and  mercenary  motive  than 
those  to  whose  memory  we  are  paying  these  proofs  of  respect.  A  sus 
picion  of  any  disposition  to  enrich  themselves  or  to  profit  by  their  public 
employments,  never  rested  on  either.  No  sordid  motive  approached 
them.  The  inheritance  which  they  have  left  to  their  children,  is  of  their 
character  and  their  fame. 

Fellow-citizens,  I  will  detain  you  no  longer  by  this  faint  and  feeble 
tribute  to  the  memory  of  the  illustrious  dead.  Even  in  other  hands, 
adequate  justice  could  not  be  performed,  within  the  limits  of  this  oc 
casion.  Their  highest,  their  best  praise,  is  your  deep  conviction  of  their 
merits,  your  affectionate  gratitude  for  their  labors  and  services.  It  is 
not  my  voice, — it  is  this  cessation  of  ordinary  pursuits,  this  arresting  of 
all  attention,  these  solemn  ceremonies,  and  this  crowded  house,  which 
speak  their  eulogy.  Their  fame,  indeed,  is  safe.  That  is  now  treasured 
up  beyond  the  reach  of  accident.  Although  no  sculptured  marble, 
should  rise  to  their  memory,  nor  engraved  stone  bear  record  of  their 
deeds,  yet  will  their  remembrance  be  as  lasting  as  the  land  they  honored. 
Marble  columns  may,  indeed,  moulder  into  dust,  time  may  erase  all  im 
press  from  the  crumbling  stone,  but  their  fame  remains;  for  which 
AMERICAN  LIBERTY  it  rose,  and  with  AMERICAN  LIBERTY  ONLY  can  it 
perish.  It  was  the  last  swelling  peal  of  yonder-choir,  l<  THEIR  BODIES 

ARE  BURIED  IN  PKACE,  BUT  THEIR  NAME  LIVETH  EVER  MORE."      I  Catch 

that  solemn  song,  I   echo  that  lofty  strain  of  funeral  triumph,  "  THEIR 

NAME  LIVETH    EVERMORE,'' 

Of  the  illustrious  signers  of  the  Declaration   of  Independence  there 


176  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

now  remains  only  Charles  Carroll.  He  seems  an  aged  oak,  standing 
alone  on  the  plain,  which  time  has  spared  a  little  longer,  after  all  its 
contemporaries  have  been  levelled  with  the  dust.  Venerable  object  ! 
we  delight  to  gather  round  its  trunk,  while  yet  it  stands,  and  to  dwell 
beneath  its  shadow.  Sole  survivor  of  an  assembly  of  as  great  men  as 
the  world  has  witnessed,  in  a  transaction,  one  of  the  most  important 
that  history  records,  what  thoughts,  what  interesting  reflections  must 
fill  his  elevated  and  devout  soul !  If  he  dwell  on  the  past,  how 
touching  its  recollections  ;  if  he  survey  the  present,  how  happy,  how 
joyous,  how  full  of  the  fruition  of  that  hope,  which  his  ardent  patriotism 
indulged  ;  if  he  glance  at  the  future,  how  does  the  prospect  of  his 
country's  advancement  almost  bewilder  his  weakened  conception  ! 
Fortunate,  distinguished  patriot  !  Interesting  relic  of  the  past  '  Let 
him  know  that  while  we  honor  the  dead,  we  do  not  forget  the  living  ; 
and  that  there  is  not  a  heart  here  which  does  not  fervently  pray  that 
Heaven  may  keep  him  yet  back  from  the  society  of  his  companions. 

And  now,  fellow-citizens,  let  us  not  retire  from  this  occasion  without 
a  deep  and  solemn  conviction  of  the  duties  which  have  devolved  upon 
us.  This  lovely  land,  this  glorious  liberty,  these  benign  institutions, 
the  dear  purchase  of  our  fathers,  are  ours  ;  ours  to  enjoy,  ours  to  pre 
serve,  ours  to  transmit.  Generations  past,  and  generations  to  come, 
hold  us  responsible  for  this  sacred  trust.  Our  fathers,  from  behind,  ad 
monish  us,  with  their  anxious  paternal  voices  ;  posterity  calls  out  to  us, 
from  the  bosom  of  the  future  ;  the  world  turns  hither  itssolicitous  eyes — all, 
all  conjure  us  to  act  wisely,  and  faithfully,  in  the  relation  which  we  sustain. 
We  can  never,  indeed,  pay  the  debt  which  is  upon  us  ;  but  by  virlure, 
by  morality,  by  religion,  by  the  cultivation  of  every  good  principle  and 
every  good  habit,  we  may  hope  to  enjoy  the  blessing,  through  our  day, 
and  to  leave  it  unimpaired  to  our  children.  Let  us  feel  deeply  how 
much,  of  what  we  are  and  of  what  we  possess,  we  owe  to  this  liberty, 
and  these  institutions  of  government.  Nature  has,  indeed,  given  us  a 
soil  which  yields  bounteously  to  the  hands  of  industry  ;  the  mighty  and 
fruitful  ocean  is  before  us,  and  the  skies  over  our  heads  shed  health  and 
vigor.  But  what  are  lands,  and  seas,  and  skies,  to  civilized  man,  without 
society,  without  knowledge,  without  morals,  without  religious  culture? 
and  how  can  these  be  enjoyed,  in  all  their  extent,  and  all  their  excel 
lence,  but  under  the  protection  of  wise  institutions  and  a  free  govern 
ment  ?  Fellow-citizens,  there  is  not  one  of  us,  there  is  not  one  of  us 
here  present,  who  does  not,  at  this  moment,  and  at  every  moment,  ex 
perience  iu  his  own  condition,  and  in  the  condition  of  those  most  near 
and  dear  to  him,  the  influence  and  the  benefits  of  this  liberty,  and  these 
institutions.  Let  us  then  acknowledge  the  blessing  ;  let  us  feel  it  deeply 
and  powerfully  ;  let  us  cherish  a  strong  affection  for  it,  and  resolve  to 
maintain  and  perpetuate  it.  The  blood  of  our  fathers,  let  it  not  have 
been  shed  in  vain  ;  the  great  hope  of  posterity,  let  it  not  be  blasted. 

The  striking  attitude,  too,  in  which  we  stand  to  the  world  around  us, 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  177 

• — a  topic  to  which  I  fear,  I  advert  too  often,  and  dwell  on  too  long, — 
cannot  be  altogether  omitted  here.  Neither  individuals  nor  nations  can 
perform  their  part  well  until  they  understand  and  feel  its  importance, 
and  comprehend  and  justly  appreciate  all  the  duties  belonging  to  it.  It 
is  not  to  inflate  national  vanity,  nor  to  swell  a  light  and  empty  feeling 
of  self-importance  ;  but  it  is  that  we  may  judge  justly  of  our  situation, 
and  of  our  own  duties,  that  I  earnestly  urge  this  consideration  of  our 
position,  and  our  character,  among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  It  cannot 
be  denied,  but  by  those  who  would  dispute  against  the  sun,  that  with 
America,  and  in  America,  a  new  era  commences  in  human  affairs  This 
era  is  distinguished  by  free  representative  governments,  by  entire  reli 
gious  liberty,  by  improved  systems  of  national  intercourse,  by  a  newly 
awakened  and  an  unconquerable  spirit  of  free  inquiry,  and  by  a  diffusion 
of  knowledge  through  the  community,  such  as  has  been  before  alto 
gether  unknown  and  unheard  of.  America,  America,  our  country, 
fellow  citizens,  our  o\vn  dear  and  native  land,  is  inseparably  connected, 
fast  bound  up,  in  fortune  and  by  fate,  with  these  great  interests.  If 
they  fall,  we  fall  with  them  ;  if  they  stand,  it  will  be  because  we  have 
upholden  them.  Let  us  contemplate,  then,  this  connection,  which 
binds  the  prosperity  of  others  to  our  own  ;  and  let  us  manfully  dis 
charge  all  the  duties  which  it  imposes.  If  we  cherish  the  virtues  anil 
tlu  principles  of  our  fathers,  Heaven  will  assist  us  to  carry  on  the  work 
of  human  liberty  and  human  happiness.  Auspicious  omens  cheer  us. 
Great  examples  are  before  us.  Our  own  firmament  now  shines  brightly 
upon  our  path.  Washington  is  in  the  clear  upper  sky.  Those  other 
stars  have  now  joined  the  American  constellation  ;  they  circle  round 
their  centre,  and  the  heavens  beam  with  new  light.  Beneath  this  illu 
mination,  let  us  walk  the  course  of  life,  and  at  its  close  devoutly  com 
mend  our  beloved  country,  the  common  parent  of  us  all,  to  the  Divine 
Benignity. 


PERIOD  SECOND. 


DEVELOPMENT. 


What  constitutes  a  State? 
Not  high  raised  battlement  or  labored  mound, 

Thick  wall  or  moated  gate  : 
Not  cities  proud  with  spires  and  turrets  crowned; 

Not  bays  and  broad-armed  ports, 
Where,  laughing   at  the  storm,  rich  navies  ride; 

Not  starred  and  spangled  courts, 
Where  lowbrowed  baseness  -wafts  perfume  to  pride. 

.Afa:— MEN,  high-minded  men, 
With  powers  as  far  above  dull  brutes  endued 

In  forest,  brake,  or  den, 

As  beasts  excel  cold  rocks  and  brambles  rude- 
Men  who  their  duties  know, 
But  know  their  rights,  and,  knowing,  dare  maintain^ 

Prevent  the  long-aimed  blow, 

And  crush  the  tyrant  while  they  rend  the  chain: 
These  constitute  a  State. 

SIR  WILLIAM  JONES. 


INAUGURAL   ADDRESS 
GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 

New  York,  April  30,  1789. 

FELLOW  CITIZENS  OF  THE  SENATE  AND  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESEN 
TATIVES — Among  the  vicissitudes  incident  to  life,  no  event  could  have 
filled  me  with  greater  anxieties  than  that,  of  which  the  notification  was 
transmitted  by  your  order,  and  received  on  the  fourth  day  of  the, 
present  month.  On  the  one  hand,  I  was  summoned  by  my  country, 
whose  voice  I  can  never  hear  but  with  veneration  and  love,  from  a 
retreat  which  I  had  chosen  with  the  fondest  predilection,  and,  in  my 
flattering  hopes,  with  an  immutable  decision  as  the  asylum  of  my  de 
clining  years;  a  retreat  which  was  rendered  every  day  more  necessary 
as  well  as  more  dear  to  me,  by  the  addition  of  habit  to  inclination,  and 
of  frequent  interruptions  in  my  health  to  the  gradual  waste  committed 
en  it  by  time,  on  the  other  hand,  the  magnitude  and  difficulty  of  the 
trust  to  which  the  voice  of  my  country  called  me,  being  sufficient  to 
awaken,  in  the  wisest  and  most  experienced  of  her  citizens,  a  distrust 
ful  scrutiny  into  his  qualifications,  could  not  but  overwhelm  with 
despondence  one  who,  inheriting  inferior  endowments  from  nature, 
and  unpractised  in  the  duties  of  civil  administration,  ought  to  be  pecu 
liarly  co  s:ious  of  his  own  deficiencies.  In  this  conflict  of  emotion?, 
all  I  dare  aver  is,  that  it  has  been  my  faithful  study  to  collect  my  duty 
from  a  just  appreciation  of  every  circumstance  by  which  it  might  be 
affected.  All  I  dare  hope  is,  that  if,  in  executing  this  task,  I  have  been 
too  much  swayed  by  a  grateful  remembrance  of  former  instances,  or 
by  an  affectionate  sensibility  to  this  transcendent  proof  of  the  confi 
dence  of  my  fellow-citizens,  and  have  thence  too  little  consulted  my 
incapacity  as  well  as  disinclination  for  the  weighty  and  untried  cares 
before  me,  my  error  will  be  palliated  by  the  motives  which  misled 
me,  and  its  consequences  be  judged  by  my  country,  with  some  share 
of  the  partiality  in  which  they  originated. 

Such  being  the  impressions  under  which  I  have,  in  obedience  to  the 
public  summons,  repaired  to  the  present  station,  it  would  be  peculiarly 
improper  to  omit,  in  this  first  official  act,  my  fervent  supplications  to 
that  Almighty  Being,  who  rules  over  the  universe,  who  presides  in  the 
councils  of  nations,  and  whose  providential  aids  can  supply  every 
human  defect,  that  His  benediction  may  consecrate  to  the  liberties  and 
happiness  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  a  government  instituted 


182  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

by  themselves  for  these  essential  purposes,  and  may  enable  every  in 
strument  employed  in  its  administration,  to  execute,  with  success,  the 
functions  allotted  to  his  charge.  In  tendering  this  homage  to  the 
Great  Author  of  every  public  and  private  good,'l  assure  myself  that  it 
expresses  your  sentiments  not  less  than  my  own;  nor  those  of  my  fel 
low-citizens  at  large  less  than  either.  No  people  can  be  bound  to 
acknowledge  and  adore  the  invisible  hand  which  conducts  the  affairs 
of  men,  more  than  the  people  of  the  United  States.  Every  step  by 
which  they  have  advanced  to  the  character  of  an  independent  nation, 
seems  to  have  been  distinguished  by  some  token  of  providential 
agency.  And,  in  the  important  revolution  just  accomplished,  in  the 
system  of  their  united  government,  the  tranquil  deliberations  and  vol 
untary  consent  of  so  many  distinct  communities,  from  which  the  event 
has  resulted,  cannot  be  compared  with  the  means  by  which  most  gov 
ernments  have  been  established,  without  some  return  of  pious  grati 
tude,  along  with  an  humble  anticipation  of  the  future  blessings,  which 
the  past  seems  to  presage.  These  reflections,  arising  out  of  the  present 
crisis,  have  forced  themselves  too  strongly  on  my  mind  to  be  sup 
pressed.  You  will  join  with  me,  I  trust,  in  thinking  that  there  are 
none  under  the  influence  of  which  the  proceedings  of  a  new  and  free 
government  can  more  auspiciously  commence. 

By  the  article  establishing  the  executive  department,  it  is  made  the 
duty  of  the  president  "to  recommend  to  your  consideration,  such 
measures  as  he  shall  judge  necessary  and  expedient."  The  circum 
stances  under  which  I  now  meet  you,  will  acquit  me  from  entering 
into  that  subject  farther  than  to  refer  you  to  the  great  constitutional 
charter  under  which  we  are  assembled;  and  which,  in  defining  your 
powers,  designates  the  objects  to  which  your  attention  is  to  be  given. 
It  will  be  more  consistent  with  those  circumstances,  and  far  more  con 
genial  with  the  feelings  which  actuate  me,  to  substitute,  in  place  of  a 
recommendation  of  particular  measures,  the  tribute  that  is  due  to  the 
talents,  the  rectitude,  and  the  patriotism  which  adorn  the  characters 
selected  to  devise  and  adopt  them.  In  these  honorable  qualifications, 
I  behold  the  surest  pledges,  that  as,  on  one  side.no  lo:al  prejudices 
or  attachments,  no  separate  views  nor  party  animosities,  will  misdirect 
the  comprehensive  and  equal  eye  which  ought  to  watch  over  this  great 
assemblage  of  communities  and  interests — so,  on  another,  that  the 
foundations  oi  our  national  policy  will  be  laid  in  the  pure  and  immu 
table  principles  of  priv?.te  morality;  and  the  pre-eminence  of  a  free 
government  be  exemplified  by  all  the  attributes  which  can  win  the 
affections  of  its  citizens,  and  command  the  respect  of  the  world. 

I  dwell  on  this  prospect  with  every  satisfaction  which  an  ardent  love 
for  my  country  can  inspire:  since  there  is  no  truth  more  thoroughaly 
established  than  that  there  exists,  in  the  economy  and  course  of  nature, 
an  indissoluble  union  between  virtue  and  happiness — between  duty 
and  advantage  —  between  the  genuine  maxims  of  an  honest  and 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON.  183 

magnanimous  policy  and  the  solid  rewards  of  public  prosperity  and 
felicity — since  we  ought  to  be  no  less  persuaded  that  the  propitious 
smiles  of  Heaven  can  never  be  expected  on  a  nation  that  disregards 
the  eternal  rules  of  order  and  right  which  Heaven  itself  has  ordained — 
and  since  the  preservation  of  the  sacred  fire  of  liberty,  and  the  destiny 
of  the  republican  model  of  government,  are  justly  considered  as 
deeply,  perhaps,  as  finally  staked,  on  the  experiment  entrusted  to  the 
hands  of  the  American  people. 

Besides  the  ordinary  objects  submitted  to  your  care,  it  will  remain 
with  your  judgment  to  decide  how  far  an  exercise  of  the  occasional 
power  delegated  by  the  fifth  article  of  the  constitution  is  rendered  ex 
pedient,  at  the  present  juncture,  by  the  nature  of  objections  which 
have  been  urged  against  the  system,  or  by  the  degree  of  inquietude 
which  has  given  birth  to  them.  Instead  of  undertaking  particular 
recommendations  on  this  subject,  in  which  I  could  be  guided  by  no 
lights  derived  from  official  opportunities,  I  shall  again  give  way  to  my 
entire  confidence  in  your  discernment  and  pursuit  of  the  public  good. 
For,  I  assure  myself,  that,  whilst  you  carefully  avoid  every  alteration 
which  might  endanger  the  benefits  of  an  united  and  effective  govern 
ment,  or  which  ought  to  await  the  future  lessons  of  experience,  a  rever 
ence  for  the  characteristic  rights  of  freemen,  and  a  regard  for  the 
public  harmony,  will  sufficiently  influence  your  deliberations  on  the 
question,  how  far  the  former  can  be  more  impregnably  fortified,  or  the 
latter  be  safely  and  more  advantageously  promoted. 

To  the  preceding  observations  I  have  one  to  add,  which  will  be  most 
properly  addressed  to  the  House  of  Representatives.  It  concerns  my 
self,  and  will  therefore  be  as  brief  as  possible. 

When  I  was  first  honored  with  a  call  into  the  service  of  my  cc  untry, 
then  on  the  eve  of  an  arduous  struggle  for  its  liberties,  the  11  ht  in 
which  I  contemplated  my  duty,  required  that  I  should  renounce  every 
pecuniary  compensation.  From  this  resolution  I  have  in  no  instance 
departed.  And  being  still  under  the  impressions  which  produced  it,  I 
must  decline,  as  inapplicable  to  myself,  any  share  in  the  personal 
emoluments,  which  may  be  indispensably  include'd  in  a  permanent 
provision  for  the  executive  department;  and  must  accordingly  pray  that 
the  pecuniary  estimates  for  the  station  in  which  I  am  placed,  m?.y, 
•  during  my  continuation  in  it,  be  limited  to  such  actual  expenditures  as 
the  public  good  may  be  thought  to  require. 

Having  thus  imparted  to  you  my  sentiments,  as  they  have  been 
awakened  by  the  occasion  which  brings  us  together,  I  shall  take  my 
present  leave,  but  not  without  resorting  once  more  to  the  benign 
Parent  of  the  human  race,  in  humble  supplication,  that*  since  he  has 
been  pleased  to  favo.r  the  American  people  with  opportunities  for  de 
liberating  in  perfect  tranquillity,  and  dispositions  for  deciding  with 
unparalleled  unanimity,  on  a  form  of  government  for  the  security  of 
their  union,  and  the  advancement  of  their  happiness,  so  his  divine 
A  P— 7 


I  $4  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

blessing  may  be  equally  conspicuous  in  the  enlarged  views,  the  tem 
perate  consultations  and  the  wise  measures  on  which  the  success  of 
this  government  must  depend. 


FAREWELL   ADDRESS, 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 
United  States,  September  17,  1796. 

FRIENDS  AND  FELLOW  CITIZENS  — The  period  for  a  new  election  of 
a  citizen,  to  administer  the  executive  government  of  the  United  States, 
being  not  far  distant,  and  the  time  actually  arrived,  when  your  thoughts 
must  be  employed  in  designating  the  person  who  is  to  be  clothed  with 
that  important  trust,  it  appears  to  me  proper,  especially  as  it  may  con 
duce  to  a  more  distinct  expression  of  the  public  voice,  that  I  should 
now  apprize  you  of  the  resolution  I  have  formed,  to  decline  being  con 
sidered  among  the  number  of  those,  out  of  whom  a  choice  is  to  be 
made. 

I  beg  you,  at  the  same  time,  to  do  me  the  justice  to  be  assured,  that 
this  resolution  has  not  been  taken  without  a  strict  regard  to  all  the 
considerations  appertaining  to  the  relation,  which  binds  a  dutiful  citi 
zen  to  his  country;  and  that,  in  withdrawing  the  tender  of  service, 
which  silence  in  my  situation  might  imply,  I  am  influenced  by  no 
diminution  of  zeal  for  your  future  interest;  no  deficiency  of  grateful 
respect  for  your  past  kindness;  but  am  supported  by  a  full  conviction 
that  the  step  is  compatible  with  both. 

The  acceptance  of,  and  continuance  hitherto  in,  the  office  to  which 
your  suffrages  have  twice  called  me,  have  been  a  uniform  sacrifice  of 
inclination  to  the  opinion  of  duty,  and  to  a  deference  for  what  appeared 
to  be  your  desire.  I  constantly  hoped,  that  it  would  have  been  much 
earlier  in  my  power,  consistently  with  motives,  which  I  was  not  at 
liberty  to  disregard,  to  return  to  that  retirement,  from  which  I  had 
been  reluctantly  drawn.  The  strength  of  my  inclination  to  do  this, 
previous  to  the  last  election,  had  even  led  to  the  preparation  of  an  ad 
dress  to  declare  it  to  you;  but  mature  reflection  on  the  then  perplexed 
and  critical  posture  of  our  affairs  with  foreign  nations,  and  the  unani 
mous  advice  of  persons  entitled  to  my  confidence,  impelled  me  to 
abandon  the  idea. 

I  rejoice,  that  the  state  of  your  concerns,  external  as  well  as  inter 
nal,  no  longer  renders  the  pursuit  of  inclination  incompatible  with  the 
sentiment  of  duty,  or  propriety,  and  am  persuaded,  whatever  parti 
ality  may  bg  retained  for  my  services,  that,  in  the  present  circum 
stances  of  our  countr}',  you  will  not  disapprove  my  determination  to 
retire. 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON.  185 

The  impressions,  with  which  I  first  undertook  the  arduous  trust, 
were  explained  on  the  proper  occasion.  In  the  discharge  of  this  trust, 
I  will  only  say,  that  I  have,  with  good  intentions,  contributed  towards 
the  organization  and  administration  of  the  government  the  best  exer 
tions  of  which  a  very  fallible  judgment  was  capable.  Not  unconscious 
in  the  outset,  of  the  inferiority  of  my  qualifications,  experience  in  my 
own  eyes,  perhaps  still  more  in  the  eyes  of  others,  has  strengthened 
the  motives  to  diffidence  of  myself,  and  every,  day  the  increasing 
weight  of  years  admonishes  me  more  and  more,  that  the  shade  of  re 
tirement  is  as  necessary  to  me  as  it  will  be  welcome.  Satisfied,  that, 
if  any  circumstances  have  given  peculiar  value  to  my  services,  they 
were  temporary,  I  have  the  consolation  to  believe,  that,  while  choice 
and  prudence  invite  me  to  quit  the  political  scene,  patriotism  does  not 
forbid  it. 

In  looking  forward  to  the  moment,  which  is  intended  to  terminate 
the  career  of  my  public  life,  my  feelings  do  not  permit  me  to  suspend 
the  deep  acknowledgment  of  that  debt  of  gratitude,  which  I  owe  to 
my  beloved  country  for  the  many  honors  it  has  conferred  upon  me  ; 
still  more  for  the  steadfast  confidence  with  which  it  has  supported  me  , 
and  for  the  opportunities  I  have  thence  enjoyed  of  manifesting  my  in 
violable  attachment,  by  services  faithful  and  persevering,  though  in 
usefulness  unequal  to  my  zeal.  If  benefits  have  resulted  to  our  coun 
try  from  these  services,  let  it  always  be  remembered  to  your  praise, 
and  as  an  instructive  example  in  our  annals,  that  under  circumstances 
in  which  the  passions,  agitated  in  every  direction,  were  liable  to  mis 
lead,  amidst  appearances  sometimes  dubious,  vicissitudes  of  fortune 
often  discouraging,  in  situations  in  which  not  unfrequently  want  of  suc 
cess  has  countenanced  the  spirit  of  criticism,  the  constancy  of  your 
support  was  the  essential  prop  of  the  efforts,  and  a  guarantee  of  the 
plans  by  which  they  were  effected.  Profoundly  penetrated  with  this 
idea,  I  shall  carry  it  with  me  to  my  grave,  as  a  strong  incitement  to 
unceasing  vows  that  Heaven  may  continue  to  you  the  choicest  tokens 
of  its  beneficence;  that  your  union  and  brotherly  affection  may  be  per 
petual,  that  the  free  constitution,  which  is  the  work  of  your  hands, 
may  be  sacredly  maintained;  that  its  administration  in  every  depart 
ment  may  be  stamped  with  wisdom  and  virtue;  that,  in  fine,  the  hap 
piness  of  the  people  of  these  states,  under  the  auspices  of  liberty,  may 
be  made  complete,  by  so  careful  a  preservation  and  so  prudent  a  use 
of  this  blessing,  as  will  acquire  to  them  the  glory  of  recommending  it 
to  the  applause,  the  affection,  and  adoption  of  every  nation,  which  is 
yet  a  stranger  to  it. 

Here,  perhaps,  I  ought  to  stop.  But  a  solicitude  for  your  welfare, 
which  cannot  end  but  with  my  life,  and  the  apprehension  of  danger, 
natural  to  that  solicitude,  urge  me,  on  an  occasion  like  the  present,  to 
offer  to  your  solemn  contemplation,  and  to  recommend  to  your  fre 
quent  review,  some  sentiments,  which  are  the  result  of  much  reflec- 


1 86  A  ME  RICA  X  PA  TRIO  TISM 

tlon,  of  no  inconsiderable  observation,  an-d  which  appear  to  me  all- 
important  to  the  permanency  of  your  felicity  as  a  people.  These  will 
be  offered  to  you  with  the  more  freedom,  as  you  can  only  see  in  them 
the  disinterested  warnings  of  a  parting  friend,  who  can  possibly  have 
no  personal  motive  to  bias  his  counsel.  Nor  can  I  forget,  as  an  en 
couragement  to  it,  your  indulgent  reception  of  my  sentiments  on  a 
former  and  not  dissimilar  occasion. 

Interwoven  as  is  the  love  of  liberty  with  every  ligament  of  your 
hearts,  no  recommendation  of  mine  is  necessary  to  fortify  or  confirm 
the  attachment. 

The  unity  of  government,  which  constitutes  you  one  people,  is  also 
now  dear  to  you.  It  is  justly  so,  for  it  is  a  main  pillar  in  the  edifice 
of  your  real  independence,  the  support  of  your  tranquillity  at  home, 
your  peace  abroad,  of  your  safety;  of  your  prosperity;  of  that  very 
liberty,  which  you  so  highly  prize  But  as  it  is  easy  to  foresee,  that, 
from  different  causes  and  from  different  quarters,  much  pains  will  be 
taken,  many  artifices  employed,  to  weaken  in  your  minds  the  convic 
tion  of  this  truth,  as  this  is  the  point  in 'your  political  fortress  against 
which  the.  batteries  of  internal  and  external  enemies  will  be  most  con 
stantly  and  actively  (though  often  covertly  and  insidiously)  directed, 
it  is  of  infinite  moment  that  you  should  properly  estimate  the  immense 
value  of  your  national  union  to  your  collective  and  individual  happi 
ness;  that  you  should  cherish  a  cordial,  habitual,  and  immovable  at 
tachment  to  it;  accustoming  yourselves  to  think  and  speak  of  it  as  of 
the  palladium  of  your  political  safety  and  prosperity;  watching  for  its 
preservation  with  jealous  anxiety;  discountenancing  whatever  may 
suggest  even  a  suspicion,  that  it  can  in  any  event  be  abandoned,  and 
indignantly  frowning  upon  the  first  dawning  of  every  attempt  to 
alienate  any  portion  of  our  country  from  the  rest,  or  to  enfeeble  the 
sacred  ties  which  now  link  together  the  various  parts. 

For  this  you  have  every  inducement  of  sympathy  and  interest. 
Citizens,  by  birth  or  choice,  of  a  common  country,  that  country  has  a 
right  to  concentrate  your  affections.  The  name  of  American,  which 
belongs  to  you,  in  your  national  .capacity,  must  always  exalt  the  just 
pride  of  patriotism,  more  than  any  appellation  derived  from  local  dis 
criminations.  With  slight  shades  of  difference,  you  have  the  same  re 
ligion,  manners,  habits,  and  political  principles.  You  have  in  a  com 
mon  cause  fought  and  triumphed  together;  the  independence  and 
liberty  you  possess  are  the  work  of  joint  counsels,  and  joint  efforts,  of 
common  dangers,  sufferings,  and  successes. 

But  these  considerations,  however  powerfully  they  address  them 
selves  to  your  sensibility,  are  greatly  outweighed  by  those  which 
apply  more  immediately  to  your  interest.  Here  every  portion  of  our 
country  finds  the  most  commanding  motives  for  carefully  guarding 
and  preserving  the  union  of  the  whole. 

The  North,  in  an  unrestrained  intercourse  with  the  South,  protected 


GROKGK    WASHINGTON.  187 

by  the  equal  laws  of  a  common  government,  finds  In  the  productions  of 
the  latter,  great  additional  resources  of  maritime  and  commercial 
enterprise  and  precious  materials  of  manufacturing1  industry.  The 
South,  in  the  same  intercourse,  benefiting  by  the  agency  of 
the  North,  see  its  agriculture  grow  and  its  commerce  expand. 
Turning  partly  into  its  own  channels  the  seamen  of  the  North,  it 
finds  its  particular  navigation  invigorated  ;  and,  while  it  contributes, 
in  different  ways,  to  nourish  and  increase  the  general  mass  of  the 
national  navigation,  it  looks  forward  to  the  protection  of  a  maritime 
strength,  to  which  itself  is  unequally  adapted.  The  East,  in  a  like 
intercourse  with  the  West,  already  finds,  and  in  the  progressive  im 
provement  of  interior  communications  by  land  and  water,  will  more 
and  more  find,  a  valuable  vent  for  the  commodities  which  it  brings 
from  abroad,  or  manufactures  at  home.  The  West  derives  from  the 
East  supplies  requisite  to  its  growth  and  comfort,  and,  what  is  per 
haps  of  still  greater  consequence,  it  must  of  necessity  owe  the  secure 
enjoyment  of  indispensable  outlets  for  its  own  productions  to  the 
weight,  influence,  and  the  future  maritime  strength  of  the  Atlantic 
side  of  the  Union,  directed  by  an  indissoluble  Community  of  interest 
as  one  nation.  Any  other  tenure  by  which  t&e  West  can  hold  this 
essential  advantage,  whether  derived  from  its  own  separate  strength, 
or  from  an  apostate  and  unnatural  connexion  with  any  foreign  power,  * 
must  be  intrinsically  precarious. 

While,  then,  every  part  of  our  country  thus  feels  an  immediate  and 
particular  interest  in  union,  all  the  parts  combined  cannot  fail  to  find 
in  the  united  mass  of  means  and  efforts  greater  strength,  greater 
resource,  proportionably  greater  security  from  external  danger,  a  less 
frequent  interruption  of  their  peace  by  foreign  nations  ;  and,  what  is 
of  inestimable  value,  they  must  derive  from  union  an  exemption 
from  those  broils  and  wars  between  themselves,  which  so  frequently 
afflict  neighboring  countries  not  tied  together  by  the  same  govern 
ments,  which  their  own  rivalships  alone  would  be  sufficient  to  pro 
duce,  but  which  opposite  foreign  alliances,  attachments,  and  intrigues 
would  stimulate  and  embitter.  Hence,  likewise,  they  will  avoid  the 
necessity  of  those  overgrown  military  establishments,  which,  under 
any  form  of  government,  are  inauspicious  to  liberty,  and  which  are  to 
be  regarded  as  particularly  hostile  to  republican  liberty.  In  this 
sense  it  is,  that  your  union  ought  to  be  considered  as  a  main  prop  of 
your  liberty,  and  that  the  love  of  the  one  ought  to  endear  to  you  the 
preservation  of  the  other. 

These  considerations  speak  a  persuasive  language  to  every  reflect 
ing  and  virtuous  mind,  and  exhibit  the  continuance  of  the  Union  as  a 
primary  object  of  patriotic  desire.  Is  there  a  doubt  whether  a  com 
mon  government  can  embrace  so  large  a  sphere  ?  Let  experience 
solve  it.  To  listen  to  mere  speculation  in  such  a  case  were  criminal. 
We  are  authorized  to  hope,  that  a  proper  organization  of  the  whole, 


i83  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

with  the  auxiliary  agency  of  governments  for  the  respective  sub 
divisions,  will  afford  a  happy  issue  to  the  experiment.  It  is  well 
worth  a  fair  and  full  experiment.  With  such  powerful  and  obvious 
motives  to  union,  affecting  all  parts  of  our  country,  while  experience 
shall  not  have  demonstrated  its  impracticability,  there  will  always  be 
reason  to  distrust  the  patriotism  of  those,  who  in  any  quarter  may 
endeavor  to  weaken  its  bands. 

In  contemplating  the  causes  which  may  disturb  our  Union,  it 
occurs  as  matter  of  serious  concern,  that  any  ground  should  have 
been  furnished  for  characterizing  parties  by  geographical  discrimina 
tions,  Northern  and  Southern,  Atlantic  and  Western  ;  whence  design 
ing  men  may  endeavor  to  excite  a  belief  that  there  is  a  real  difference 
of  local  interests  and  views.  One  of  the  expedients  of  party  to 
acquire  influence,  within  particular  districts,  Is  to  misrepresent  the 
opinions  and  aims  of  other  districts.  You  cannot  shield  yourselves 
too  much  against  the  jealousies  and  heart-burnings,  which  spring 
from  these  misrepresentations;  they  tend  to  render  alien  to  each  other 
those,  who  ought  to  be  bound  together  by  fraternal  affection.  The 
inhabitants  of  our  western  country  have  lately  had  a  useful  lesson  on 
this  head;  they  have  seen,  in  the  negotiation  by  the  Executive,  and  in 
the  unanimous  ratification  by  the  Senate,  of  the  treaty  with  Spain,  and 
in  the  universal  satisfaction  at  that  event,  throughout  the  United  States, 
a  decisive  proof  how  unfounded  were  the  suspicions  propagated 
among  them  of  a  policy  in  the  General  Government  and  in  the  Atlan 
tic  States  unfriendly  to  their  interests  in  regard  to  the  Mississippi  ; 
they  have  been  witnesses  to  the  formation  of  two  treaties,  that  with 
Great  Britain,  and  that  with  Spain,  which  secure  to  them  every  thing 
they  could  desire,  in  respect  to  our  foreign  relations,  towards  confirm 
ing  their  prosperity.  Will  it  not  be  their  wisdom  to  rely  for  the  pre 
servation  of  these  advantages  on  the  Union  by  which  they  were  pro 
cured  ?  Will  they  not  henceforth  be  deaf  to  those  advisers,  if  such 
there  are,  who  would  sever  them  from  their  brethren  and  connect  them 
with  aliens  ? 

To  the  efficacy  and  permanency  of  your  Union,  a  Government  for 
the  whole  is  indispensable.  No  alliances,  however  strict,  between  the 
parts  can  be  an  adequate  substitute;  they  must  inevitably  experience 
the  infractions  and  interruptions,  which  all  alliances  in  all  times  have 
experienced.  Sensible  of  this  momentous  truth,  you  have  improved 
upon  your  first  essay,  by  the  adoption  of  a  Constitution  of  Govern 
ment  better  calculated  than  your  former  for  an  intimate  Union,  and 
for  the  efficacious  management  of  your  common  concerns.  This  Gov 
ernment,  the  offspring  of  our  own  choice,  uninfluenced  and  unawed, 
adopted  upon  full  investigation  and  mature  deliberation,  completely 
free  in  its  principles,  in  the  distribution  of  its  powers,  uniting  security 
with  energy,  and  containing  within  itself  a  provision  for  its  own 
amendment,  has  a  just  claim  to  your  confidence  and  your  support. 


GEORGE.   WASHINGTON.  I?9 

Respect  for  its  authority,  compliance  with  its  laws,  acquiescence  in  its 
measures,  are  duties  enjoined  by  the  fundamental  maxims  of  true 
Liberty.  The  basis  of  our  political  systems  is  the  right  of  the  people 
to  make  and  to  alter  their  constitutions  of  government.  But  the  con 
stitution  which  at  any  time  exists,  till  changed  by  an  explicit  and  au 
thentic  act  of  the  whole  people,  is  sacredly  obligatory  upon  all.  The 
very  idea  of  the  power  and  the  right  of  the  people  to  establish  Gov 
ernment  presupposes  the  duty  of  every  individual  to  obey  the  estab 
lished  Government. 

All  obstructions  to  the  execution  of  the  laws,  all  combinations  and 
associations,  under  whatever  plausible  character,  with  the  real  design 
lo  direct,  control,  counteract,  or  awe  the  regular  deliberation  and 
action  of  the  constituted  authorities,  are  destructive  of  this  funda 
mental  principle,  and  of  fatal  tendency.  They  serve  to  organize 
faction,  to  give  it  an  artificial  and  extraordinary  force;  to  put,  in 
the  place  of  the  delegated  will  of  the  nation,  the  will  of  a  party,  of 
ten  a  small  but  artful  and  enterprising  minority  of  the  community; 
and,  according  to  the  alternate  triumphs  of  different  parties,  to  make 
the  public  administration  the  mirror  of  the  ill-concerted  and  incongru 
ous  projects  of  faction,  rather  than  the  organ  of  consistent  and 
wholesome  plans  digested  by  common  counsels,  and  modified  by 
mutual  interests. 

However  combinations  or  associations  of  the  above  description  may 
now  and  then  answer  popular  ends,  they  are  likely,  in  the  course  of 
time  and  things,  to  become  potent  engines,  by  which  cunning,  am 
bitious,  and  unprincipled  men  will  be  enabled  to  subvert  the  power 
of  the  people,  and  to  usurp  for  themselves  the  reins  of  government; 
destroying  afterwards  the  very  engines  which  have  lifted  them  to  un 
just  dominion. 

Towards  the  preservation  of  your  government,  and  the  permanency 
of  your  present  happy  state,  it  is  requisite,  not  only  that  you  steadily 
discountenance  irregular  oppositions  to  its  acknowledged  authority, 
but  also  that  you  resist  with  care  the  spirit  of  innovation  upon  its 
principles,  however  specious  the  pretexts.  One  method  of  assault 
may  be  to  effect,  in  the  forms  of  the  constitution,  alterations,  which 
will  impair  the  energy  of  the  system,  and  thus  to  undermine  what 
cannot  be  directly  overthrown.  In  all  the  changes  to  which  you  may 
be  invited,  remember  that  time  and  habit  are  at  least  as  necessary  to  fix 
the  true  character  of  governments,  as  of  other  human  institutions; 
that  experience  is  the  surest  standard,  by  which  to  test  the  real  ten 
dency  of  the  existing  constitution  of  a  country;  that  facility  in  changes, 
upon  the  credit  of  mere  hypothesis  and  opinion,  exposes  to  perpetual 
change,  from  the  endless  variety  of  hypothesis  and  opinion;  and  re 
member,  especially,  that,  for  the  efficient  management  of  your  com 
mon  interests,  in  a  country  co  extensive  as  ours,  a  government  of  as 
much  vigor  as  is  consistent  with  the  perfect  security  of  liberty  i3  in- 


1 90  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

dispensable.  Liberty  itself  will  find  in  such  a  government,  with 
powers  properly  distributed  and  adjusted,  its  surest  guardian.  It  is, 
indeed,  little  else  than  a  name,  where  the  government  is  too  feeble  to 
withstand  the  enterprises  of  faction,  to  confine  each  member  of  the 
society  within  the  limits  prescribed  by  the  laws,  and  to  maintain  all 
in  the  secure  and  tranquil  enjoyment  of  the  rights  of  person  and 
property. 

I  have  already  intimated  to  you  the  danger  of  parties  in  the  state, 
with  particular  reference  to  the  founding  of  them  on  geographical  dis 
criminations.  Let  me  now  take  a  more  comprehensive  view,  and 
warn  you  in  the  most  solemn  manner  against  the  baneful  effects  of 
the  spirit  of  party,  generally. 

This  spirit,  unfortunately,  is  inseparable  from  our  nature,  having 
its  root  in  the  strongest  passions  of  the  human  mind.  It  exists  under 
different  shapes  in  all  governments,  more  or  less  stifled,  controlled, 
or  repressed;  but,  in  those  of  the  popular  form,  it  is  seen  in  its  great 
est  rankness,  and  is  truly  their  worst  enemy. 

The  alternate  domination  of  one  faction  over  another,  sharpened 
by  the  spirit  of  revenge,  natural  to  party  dissension,  which  in  different 
ages  and  countries  has  perpetrated  the  most  horrid  enormities,  is  itself 
a  frightful  despotism.  But  this  leads  at  length  to  a  more  formal  and 
permanent  despotism.  The  disorders  and  miseries,  which  result, 
gradually  incline  the  minds  of  men  to  seek  security  and  repose  in  the 
absolute  power  of  an  individual;  and  sooner  or  later  the  chief  of  some 
prevailing  faction,  more  able  or  more  fortunate  than  his  competitors, 
turns  this  disposition  to  the  purposes  of  his  own  elevation,  on  the 
ruins  of  public  liberty. 

Without  looking  fonvard  to  an  extremity  of  this  kind  (which  never 
theless  ought  not  to  be  entirely  out  of  sight),  the  common  and  con 
tinual  mischiefs  of  the  spirit  of  party  are  sufficient  to  make  it  the 
interest  and  duty  of  a  wise  people  to  discourage  and  restrain  it. 

It  serves  always  to  distract  the  public  councils,  and  enfeeble  the 
public  administration.  It  agitates  the  community  with  ill-founded 
jealousies  and  false  alarms;  kindles  the  animosity  of  one  part  against 
another,  foments  occasionally  riot  and  insurrection.  It  opens  the 
door  to  foreign  influence  and  corruption,  which  find  a  facilitated  access 
to  the  government  itself  through  the  channels  of  party  passions. 
Thus  the  policy  and  the  will  of  one  country  are  subjected  to  the  policy 
and  will  of  another. 

There  is  an  opinion,  that  parties  in  free  countries  are  useful  checks 
upon  the  administration  of  the  government,  and  serve  to  keep  alive 
the  spirit  of  liberty.  This  within  certain  limits  is  probably  true;  and 
in  governments  of  a  monarchical  cast,  patriotism  may  look  with  indul 
gence,  if  not  with  favor,  upon  the  spirit  of  party.  But  in  those  of  the 
popular  character,  in  governments  purely  elective,  it  is  a  spirit  not  to 
be  encouraged.  From  their  natural  tendency,  it  is  certain  there  will 


GEOR CE    1 1  \-l  SUING  TON.  1 9 1 

al\vavs  be  enough  of  that  spirit  for  every  salutary  purpose.  And, 
there  being  constant  danger  of  excess,  the  effort  ought  to  be,  by  force 
of  public  opinion,  to  mitigate  and  assuage  it.  A  fire  not  to  be 
quenched,  it  demands  a  uniform  vigilance  to  prevent  its  bursting  into 
a  flame,  lest,  instead  of  warming,  it  should  consume. 

It  is  important,  likewise,  that  the  habits  of  thinking  in  a  free  coun 
try  should  inspire  caution,  in  those  intrusted  with  its  administration, 
to  confine  themselves  within  their  respective  constitutional  spheres, 
avoiding  in  the  exercise  of  the  powers  of  one  department  to  encroach 
upon  another.  The  spirit  of  encroachment  tends  to  consolidate  the 
powers  of  all  the  departments  in  one,  and  thus  to  create,  whatever  the 
form  of  government,  a  real  despotism.  A  just  estimate  of  that  love 
of  power,  and  proneness  to  abuse  it,  which  predominates  in  the  hu 
man  heart,  is  sufficient  to  satisfy  us  of  the  truth  of  this  position.  The 
necessity  of  reciprocal  checks  in  the  exercise  of  political  power,  by 
dividing  and  distributing  it  into  different  depositories,  and  constitut 
ing  each  the  guardian  of  the  public  weal  against  invasions  by  the  oth 
ers,  has  been  evinced  by  experiments  ancient  and  modern;  some  of 
them  In  our  country  and  under  our  own  eyes.  To  preserve  them 
must  be  as  necessary  as  to  institute  them.  If,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
people,  the  distribution  or  modification  of  the  constitutional  powers 
be  in  any  particular  wrong,  let  it  be  corrected  by  an  amendment  in 
the  way  which  the  constitution  designates.  But  let  there  be  no 
change  by  usurpation;  for,  though  this,  in  one  instance,  may  be  the 
instrument  of  good,  it  is  the  customary  weapon  by  which  free  govern 
ments  are  destroyed.  The  precedent  must  always  greatly  overbalance 
in  permanent  evil  any  partial  or  transient  benefit,  which  the  use  can 
at  any  time  yield. 

Of  all  the  dispositions  and  habits,  which  lead  to  political  prosperity, 
religion  and  morality  are  indispensable  supports.  In  vain  would  that 
man  claim  the  tribute  of  patriotism,  who  should  labor  to  subvert  these 
great  pillars  of  human  happiness,  these  firmest  props  of  the  duties  of 
men  and  citizens.  The  mere  politician-,  equally  with  the  pious  man, 
ought  to  respect  and  to  cherish  them.  A  volume  could  not  trace  all 
their  connexions  with  private  and  public  felicity.  Let  it  simply  be 
asked,  Where  is  the  security  for  property,  for  reputation,  for  life,  if 
the  sense  of  religious  obligation  desert  the  oaths,  which  are  the  instru 
ments  of  investigation  in  courts  of  justice?  And  let  us  with  caution 
indulge  the  supposition,  that  morality  can  be  maintained  without  reli 
gion.  Whatever  may  be  conceded  to  the  influence  of  refined  education 
on  minds  of  peculiar  structure,  reason  and  experience  both  forbid  us 
to  expect,  that  national  morality  can  prevail  in  exclusion  of  religious 
principle. 

It  is  substantially  true,  that  virtue  or  morality  is  a  necessary  spring 
of  popular  government.  The  rule,  indeed,  extends  with  more  or  less 
force  to  every  species  of  free  government.  Who,  that  is  a  sincere 


*92  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

friend  to  it,  can  look  with  indifference  upon  attempts  to  shake  the 
foundation  of  the  fabric  ? 

Promote,  then,  as  an  object  of  primary  importance,  institutions  for 
the  general  diffusion  of  knowledge.  In  proportion  as  the  structure  of 
a  government  gives  force  to  public  opinion,  it  is  essential  that  public 
opinion  should  be  enlightened. 

As  a  very  important  source  of  strength  and  security,  cherish  public 
credit.  One  method  of  preserving  it  is,  to  use  it  as  sparingly  as  pos 
sible;  avoiding  occasions  of  expense  by  cultivating  peace,  but  remem 
bering  also  that  timely  disbursements  to  prepare  for  danger  fre 
quently  prevent  much  greater  disbursements  to  repel  it,  avoiding 
likewise  the  accumulation  of  debt,  not  only  by  shunning  occasions  of 
expense,  but  by  vigorous  exertion  in  time  of  peace  to  discharge  the 
debts,  which  unavoidable  wars  may  have  occasioned  not  ungenerously 
throwing  upon  posterity  the  burden  which  we  ourselves  ought  to 
bear.  The  execution  of  these  maxims  belongs  to  your  representatives, 
but  it  is  necessary  that  public  opinion  should  co-operate.  To  facilitate 
to  them  the  performance  of  their  duty,  it  is  essential  that  you  should 
practically  bear  in  mind,  that  towards  the  payment  of  debts  there  must 
be  revenue;  that  to  have  revenue  there  must  be  taxes;  that  no  taxes 
can  be  devised  which  are  not  more  or  less  inconvenient  and  unpleas 
ant;  that  the  intrinsic  embarrassment,  inseparable  from  the  selection  of 
the  proper  objects  (which  is  always  a  choice  of  difficulties),  ought  to  be 
a  decisive  motive  for  a  candid  construction  of  the  conduct  of  the  gov 
ernment  in  making  it,  and  for  a  spirit  of  acquiescence  in  the  measures 
for  obtaining  revenue,  which  the  public  exigencies  may  at  any  time 
dictate. 

Observe  good  faith  and  justice  towards  all  nations;  cultivate  peace 
and  harmony  with  all.  Religion  and  morality  enjoin  this  conduct;  and 
can  it  be,  that  good  policy  does  not  equally  enjoin  it?  It  will  be 
worthy  of  a  free,  enlightened,  and  at  no  distant  period,  a  great  nation, 
to  give  to  mankind  the  magnanimous  and  too  novel  example  of  a 
people  always  guided  by  an  exalted  justice  and  benevolence.  Who 
can  doubt,  that  in  the  course  of  time  and  things,  the  fruits  of  such  a 
plan  would  richly  repay  any  temporary  advantages,  which  might  be 
lost  by  a  steady  adherence  to  it  ?  Can  it  be  that  Providence  has  not 
connected  the  permanent  felicity  of  a  nation  with  its  virtue?  The  ex 
periment,  at  least,  is  recommended  by  every  sentiment  which  ennobles 
human  nature.  Alas!  is  it  rendered  impossible  by  its  vices? 

In  the  execution  of  such  a  plan,  nothing  is  more  essential,  than  that 
permanent,  inveterate  antipathies  against  particular  nations,  and 
passionate  attachments  for  others,  should  be  excluded;  and  that,  in 
place  of  them,  just  and  amicable  feelings  towards  all  should  be  culti 
vated.  The  nation,  which  indulges  towards  another  an  habitual 
hatred,  or  an  habitual  fondness,  is  in  some  degree  a  slave.  It  is  a 
slave  to  its  animosity  or  to  its  affection,  either  of  which  is  sufficient  to 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON.  i;3 

lead  it  astray  from  its  duty  and  its  interest.  Antipathy  in  one  nation 
against  another  disposes  each  more  readily  to  offer  insult  and  injury, 
to  lay  hold  of  slight  causes  of  umbrage,  and  to  be  haughty  and  intract 
able,  when  accidental  or  trifling  occasions  of  dispute  occur.  Hence, 
frequent  collisions,  obstinate,  envenomed,  and  bloody  contests.  The 
nation,  prompted  by  ill-will  and  resentment,  sometimes  impels  to  war 
the  Government,  contrary  to  the  best  calculations  of  policy.  The 
Government  sometimes  participates  in  the  national  propensity,  and 
adopts  through  passion  what  reason  would  reject;  at  other  times,  it 
makes  the  animosity  of  the  nation  subservient  to  projects  of  hostility 
instigated  by  pride,  ambition,  and  other  sinister  and  pernicious  mo 
tives.  The  peace  often,  sometimes  perhaps  the  liberty,  of  nations 
has  been  the  victim. 

So  likewise,  a  passionate  attachment  of  one  nation  for  another  pro 
duces  a  variety  of  evils.  Sympathy  for  the  favorite  nation,  facilitat 
ing  the  illusion  of  an  imaginary  common  interest  in  cases  where 
no  real  common  interest  exists,  and  infusing  into  one  the  enmities 
of  the  other,  betrays  the  former  into  a  participation  in  the  quar 
rels  and  wars  of  the  latter,  without  adequate  inducement  or  justi 
fication.  It  leads  also  to  concessions  to  the  favorite  nation  of 
privileges  denied  to  others,  which  is  apt  doubly  to  injure  the  nation 
making  the  concessions;  by  unnecessarily  parting  with  what  ought  to 
have  been  retained;  and  by  exciting  jealousy,  ill-will,  and  a  disposi 
tion  to  retaliate,  in  the  parties  from  whom  equal  privileges  are  with 
held.  And  it  gives  to  ambitious,  corrupted,  or  deluded  citizens  (who 
devote  themselves  to  the  favorite  nation),  facility  to  betray  or  sacrifice 
the  interests  of  their  own  country,  without  odium,  sometimes  even 
with  popularity;  gilding,  with  the  appearances  of  a  virtuous  sense  of 
obligation,  a  commendable  deference  for  public  opinion,  or  a  laudable 
zeal  for  public  good,  the  base  or  foolish  compliances  of  ambition,  cor 
ruption  or  infatuation. 

As  avenues  to  foreign  influence  in  innumerable  ways,  such  attach 
ments  are  particularly  alarming  to  the  truly  enlightened  and  indepen 
dent  patriot.  How  many  opportunities  do  they  afford  to  tamper  with 
domestic  factions,  to  practice  the  arts  of  seduction,  to  mislead  public 
opinion,  to  influence  or  awe  the  public  councils!  Such  an  attachment 
of  a  small  or  weak,  towards  a  great  and  powerful  nation,  dooms  the 
former  to  be  the  satellite  of  the  latter. 

Against  the  insidious  wiles  of  foreign  influence  (I  conjure  you  to 
believe  me,  fellow-citizens),  the  jealousy  of  a  free  people  ought  to  be 
be  constantly  awake,  since  history  and  experience  prove  that  foreign 
influence  is  one  of  the  most  baneful  foes  of  republican  government. 
But  that  jealousy,  to  be  useful,  must  be  impartial;  else  it  becomes  the 
instrument  of  the  very  influence  to  be  avoided,  instead  of  a  defence 
against  it.  Excessive  partiality  for  one  foreign  nation,  and  excessive 
dislike  of  another,  cause  those  whom  they  actuate  to  sec  danger  only 


194  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

on  one  side,  and  serve  to  veil  and  even  second  the  arts  of  influence  on 
the  other.  Real  patriots  who  may  resist  the  intrigues  of  the  favorite, 
are  liable  to  become  suspected  and  odious;  while  its  tools  and  dupes 
usurp  the  applause  and  confidence  of  the  people,  to  surrender  their 
interests. 

/  The  great  rule  of  conduct  for  us,  in  regard  to  foreign  nations,  is,  in 
'extending  our  commercial  relations,  to  have  with  them  as  little  political 
connexion  as  possible.     So  far  as  we  have  already  formed  engage 
ments,  let  them  be  fulfilled  with  perfect  good  faith.     Here  let  us  stop. 

Europe  has  a  set  of  primary  interests,  which  to  us  have  none,  or  a 
very  remote  relation.  Hence  she  must  be  engaged  in  frequent  con 
troversies,  the  causes  of  which  are  essentially  foreign  to  our  concerns. 
Hence,  therefore,  it  must  be  unwise  in  us  to  implicate  ourselves,  by 
artificial  ties,  in  the  ordinary  vicissitudes  of  her  politics,  or  the  ordinary 
combinations  and  collisions  of  her  friendships  or  enmities.  J 

Our  detached  and  distant  situation  invites  and  enables  us  to  pursue 
a  different  course.  If  we  remain  one  people,  under  an  efficient  govern 
ment,  the  period  is  not  far  off  when  we  may  defy  material  injury  from 
external  annoyance  ;  when  we  may  take  such  an  attitude  as  will  cause 
the  neutrality,  we  may  at  any  time  resolve  upon,  to  be  scrupulously 
respected;  when  belligerent  nations,  under  the  impossibility  of  making 
acquisitions  upon  us,  will  not  lightly  hazard  the  giving  us  provocation; 
when  we  may  choose  peace  or  war,  as  our  interest,  guided  by  justice, 
shall  counsel. 

Why  forego  the  advantages  of  so  peculiar  a  situation?  Why  quit  our 
own  to  stand  upon  foreign  ground  ?  Why,  by  interweaving  our  destiny 
with  that  of  any  part  of  Europe,  entangfe  our  peace  and  prosperity  in 
the  toils  of  European  ambition,  rivalship,  interest,  humor  or  caprice? 

It  is  our  true  policy  to  steer  clear  of  permanent  alliances  with  any 
portion  of  the  foreign  world;  so  far,  I  mean,  as  we  are  now  at  liberty 
to  do  it;  for  let  me  not  be  understood  as  capable  of  patronizing  infi 
delity  to  existing  engagements.  I  hold  the  maxim  no  less  applicable 
to  public  than  to  private  affairs,  that  honesty  is  always  the  best  policy 
I  repeat  it,  therefore,  let  those  engagements  be  observed  in  their  gen 
uine  sense.  But,  in  my  opinion,  it  is  unnecessary  and  would  be  un 
wise  to  extend  themy 

Taking  care  always  to  keep  ourselves,  by  suitable  establishments, 
on  a  respectable  defensive  posture,  we  may  safely  trust  to  temporary 
alliances  for  extraordinary  emergencies. 

Harmony,  liberal  intercourse  with  all  nations,  are  recommended  by 
policy,  humanity,  and  interest.  But  even  our  commercial  policy 
should  hold  an  equal  and  impartial  hand;  neither  seeking  nor  granting 
exclusive  favors  or  preferences;  consulting  the  natural  course  of 
things;  diffusing  and  diversifying  by  gentle  means  the  streams  of  com 
merce,  but  forcing  nothing;  establishing,  with  powers  so  disposed,  in 
order  to  give  trade  a  stable  course,  to  define  the  rights  of  our  mer- 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON.  195 

chants,  and  to  enable  the  government  to  support  them,  conventional 
rules  of  intercourse,  the  best  that  present  circumstances  and  mutual 
opinion  will  permit,  but  temporary,  and  liable  to  be  from  time  to  time 
abandoned  or  varied,  as  experience  and  circumstances  shall  dictate; 
constantly  keeping  in  view,  that  it  is  folly  in  one  nation  to  look  for 
disinterested  favors  from  another;  that  it  must  pay  with  a  portion  of 
its  independence  for  whatever  it  may  accept  under  that  character; 
that,  by  such  acceptance,  it  may  place  itself  in  the  condition  of  having 
given  equivalents  for  nominal  favors,  and  yet  of  being  reproached  with 
ingratitude  for  not  giving  more.  There  can  be  no  greater  error  than 
to  expect  or  calculate  upon  real  favors  from  nation  to  nation.  It  is  an 
illusion,  which  experience  must  cure,  which  a  just  pride  ought  to  dis 
card. 

In  offering  to  you,  my  countrymen,  these  counsels  of  an  old  and  af 
fectionate  friend,  I  dare  not  hope  they  will  make  the  strong  and 
lasting  impression  I  could  wish;  that  they  will  control  the  usual  cur 
rent  of  the  passions,  or  prevent  our  nation  from  running  the  course, 
which  has  hitherto  marked  the  destiny  of  nations.  But,  if  I  may  even 
flatter  myself,  that  they  may  be  productive  of  some  partial  benefit, 
some  occasional  good;  that  they  may  now  and  then  recur  to  moderate 
the  fury  of  party  spirit,  to  warn  against  the  mischiefs  of  foreign  in 
trigue,  to  guard  against  the  impostures  of  pretended  patriotism;  this 
hope  will  be  a  full  recompense  for  the  solicitude  for  your  welfare,  by 
which  they  have  been  dictated. 

How  far  in  the  discharge  of  my  official  duties,  I  have  been  guided  by 
the  principles  which  have  been  delineated,  the  public  records  and  other 
evidences  of  my  conduct  must  witness  to  you  and  to  the  world.  To 
myself,  the  assurance  of  my  own  conscience  is,  that  I  have  at  least 
believed  myself  to  be  guided  by  them. 

In  relation  to  the  still  subsisting  war  in  Europe,  my  proclamation  of 
the  22d  of  April,  1793,  is  the  index  of  my  plan.  Sanctioned  by  your 
approving  voice,  and  by  that  of  your  Representatives  in  both  Houses 
of  Congress,  the  spirit  of  that  measure  has  continually  governed  me, 
uninfluenced  by  any  attempts  to  deter  or  divert  me  from  it. 

After  deliberate  examination,  with  the  aid  of  the  best  lights  I  could 
obtain,  I  was  well  satisfied  that  our  country,  under  all  the  circum 
stances  of  the  case,  had  a  right  to  take,  and  was  bound  in  duty  and 
interest  to  take,  a  neutra!  position.  Having  taken  it,  I  determined, 
as  far  as  should  depend  upon  me,  to  maintain  it,  with  moderation, 
perseverance  and  firmness. 

The  considerations  which  respect  the  right  to  hold  this  conduct,  it 
is  not  necessary  on  this  occasion  to  detail.  I  will  only  observe,  that, 
according  to  my  understanding  of  the  matter,  that  right,  so  far  from 
being  denied  by  any  of  the  belligerent  powers,  has  been  virtually  ad 
mitted  by  all. 

The  duty  of  holding  a  neutral  conduct  maybe  inferred,  without  any- 


1 96  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

thing  more,  from  the  obligation  which  justice  and  humanity  impose  on 
every  nation,  in  cases  in  which  it  is  free  to  act,  to  maintain  inviolate 
the  relations  of  peace  and  amity  towards  other  nations. 

The  inducements  of  interest  for  observing  that  conduct  will  best  be 
referred  to  vour  own  reflections  and  experience.  With  me  a  predomi 
nant  motive  has  been  to  endeavor  to  gain  time  to  our  country  to  settle 
and  mature  its  yet  recent  institutions,  and  to  progress  without  inter 
ruption  to  that  degree  of  strength  and  consistency,  which  is  necessary 
to  give  it,  humanly  speaking,  the  command  of  its  own  fortunes. 

Though,  in  reviewing  the  incidents  of  my  administration,  I  am  un 
conscious  of  intentional  error,  I  am  nevertheless  too  sensible  of  my 
defects  not  to  think  it  probable  that  I  may  have  committed  many  er 
rors.  Whatever  they  may  be  I  fervently  beseech  the  Almighty  to 
avert  or  mitigate  the  evils  to  which  they  may  tend.  I  shall  also  carry 
with  me  the  hope,  that  my  country  will  never  cease  to  view  them  with 
indulgence;  and  that,  after  forty-five  years  of  my  life  dedicated  to  its 
service  with  an  upright  zeal,  the  faults  of  incompetent  abilities  will 
be  consigned  to  oblivion,  as  myself  must  soon  be  to  the  mansions  of 
rest. 

Relying  on  its  kindness  in  this  as  in  other  things,  and  actuated  by 
that  fervent  love  towards  it,  which  is  so  natural  to  a  man,  who  views 
in  it  the  native  soil  of  himself  and  his  progenitors  for  several  genera 
tions;  I  anticipate  with  pleasing  expectation  that  retreat,  in  which  I 
promise  myself  to  realize,  without  alloy,  the  sweet  enjoyment  of  par 
taking,  in  the  midst  of  my  fellow-citizens,  the  benign  influence  of  good 
laws  under  a  free  government,  the  ever  favorite  object  of  my  heart, 
and  the  happy  reward,  as  I  trust,  of  our  mutual  cares,  labors,  and 
dangers. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 

United  Slates,  September  \7th,  1796. 


ON    THE    EMBARGO. 

JOSIAH  QUINCY,  JR. 

Washington,  November  28,  1808. 

I  agree  to  this  resolution,  because,  in  my  apprehension,  it  offers  a 
solemn  pledge  to  this  nation — a  pledge  not  to  be  mistaken,  and  not  to 
be  evaded — that  the  present  system  of  public  measures  shall  be  totally 
abandoned.  Adopt  it,  and  there  is  an  end  of  the  policy  of  deserting 
our  rights,  under  a  pretense  of  maintaining  them.  Adopt  it,  and  we 
no  longer  yield  to  the  beck  of  haughty  belligerents  the  rights  of  navi 
gating  the  ocean, — that  choice  inheritance  bequeathed  to  us  by  our 
fathers.  Adopt  it,  and  there  is  a  termination  of  that  base  and  abject 


JO  SI  A II   QUINCY,  JR.  197 

submission  by  which  this  country  has  for  these  eleven  months  been 
disgraced  and  brought  to  the  brink  of  ruin. 

It  remains  for  us,  therefore,  to  consider  what  submission  is,  and 
what  the  pledge  not  to  submit  implies. 

One  man  submits  to  the  order,  decree,  or  edict  of  another,  when  he 
does  that  thing  which  such  order,  decree,  or  edict  commands,  or  when 
he  omits  to  do  that  thing  which  such  order,  decree,  or  edict  prohibits. 
This,  then,  is  submission.  It  is  to  do  as  we  are  bidden.  It  is  to  take 
the  will  of  another  as  a  measure  of  our  rights.  It  is  to  yield  to  his 
power,  to  go  where  he  directs,  or  to  refrain  from  going  where  he 
forbids  us. 

If  this  be  submission,  then  the  pledge  not  to  submit  implies  the 
reverse  of  all  this.  It  is  a  solemn  declaration  that  we  will  not  do  that 
thing  which  such  order,  decree,  or  edict  commands,  or  that  we  will  do 
what  it  prohibits.  This,  then,  is  freedom.  This  is  honor.  This  is 
independence.  It  consists  in  taking  the  nature  of  things,  and  not  the 
will  of  another,  as  the  measure  of  our  rights.  What  God  and  nature 
offer  us  we  will  enjoy  in  despite  of  the  commands,  regardless  of  the 
menaces  of  iniquitous  power. 

Let  us  apply  these  correct  and  undeniable  principles  to  the  edicts  of 
Great  Britain  and  France,  and  the  consequent  abandonment  of  the 
ocean  by  the  American  government.  The  decrees  of  France  prohibit 
us  from  trading  with  Great  Britain.  The  orders  of  Great  Britain  pro 
hibit  us  from  trading  with  France.  And  what  do  we  do?  Why,  in  direct 
subserviency  to  the  edicts  of  each,  we  prohibit  our  citizens  from  trading 
with  either.  We  do  more.  As  if  unqualified  submission  was  not 
humiliating  enough,  we  descend  to  an  act  of  supererogation  in  servility; 
we  abandon  trade  altogether;  we  not  only  refrain  from  that  particular 
trade  which  their  respective  edicts  proscribe,  but,  lest  the  ingenuity 
of  our  merchants  should  enable  them  to  evade  their  operation,  to  make 
submission  doubly  sure,  the  American  government  virtually  re-enact 
the  edicts  of  the  belligerents,  and  abandon  all  the  trade  which,  not 
withstanding  the  practical  effects  of  their  edicts,  remains  to  us.  The 
same  conclusion  will  result  if  we  consider  our  embargo  in  relation  to 
the  objects  of  this  belligerent  policy.  France,  by  her  edicts,  would 
compress  Great  Britain  by  destroying  her  commerce  and  cutting  off  her 
supplies.  All  the  continent  of  Europe,  in  the  hand  of  Bonaparte,  is 
made  subservient  to  this  policy.  The  embargo  law  of  the  United 
States,  in  its  operation,  is  an  union  with  the  continental  coalition 
against  British  commerce  at  the  very  moment  most  auspicious  to  its 
success.  Can  anything  be  in  more  direct  subserviency  to  the  views  of 
the  French  Emperor?  If  we  consider  the  orders  of  Great  Britain,  the 
result  will  be  the  same.  I  proceed  at  present  on  the  supposition  of  a 
perfect  impartiality  in  our  administration  towards  both  belligerents, 
so  far  as  relates  to  the  embargo  law,  Great  Britain  had  two  objects 


198  A  MERIC. !  Ar  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

in  issuing  her  orders.  First,  to  excite  discontent  in  the  people  on  the 
continent,  by  depriving  them  of  their  accustomed  colonial  supplies. 
Second,  to  secure  to  herself  that  commerce  of  which  she  deprived 
neutrals.  Our  embargo  co-operates  with  the  British  view  in  both  re 
spects.  By  our  dereliction  of  the  ocean,  the  continent  is  much  more 
deprived  of  the  advantages  of  commerce  than  it  would  be  possible  for 
the  British  navy  to  effect,  and  by  removing  our  competition  all  the  com 
merce  of  the  continent  which  can  be  forced  is  wholly  left  to  be  reaped 
by  Great  Britain.  The  language  of  each  sovereign  is  in  direct  con 
formity  with  these  ideas.  Napoleon  tells  the  American  minister,  vir 
tually,  that  we  are  very  good  Americans;  that  although  he  will  not 
allow  the  property  he  has  in  his  hands  to  escape  him,  nor  desist  from 
burning  and  capturing  our  vessels  on  every  occasion,  yet  that  he  is, 
thus  far,  satisfied  with  our  co-operation.  And  what  is  the  language  of 
George  III.,  when  our  minister  presents  to  his  consideration  the  em 
bargo  laws?  Is  it  Le  roy  s'  avisera  ? — "The  king  will  reflect  upon 
them."  No,  it  is  the  pure  language  of  royal  approbation,  Le  roy  le  vent— 
"  The  king  wills  it."  Were  you  colonies,  he  could  expect  no  more. 
His  subjects  as  inevitably  get  that  commerce  which  you  abandon,  as 
the  water  will  certainly  run  into  the  only  channel  which  remains  after 
all  the  others  are  obstructed.  In  whatever  point  of  view  you  consider 
these  embargo  laws  in  relation  to  those  edicts  and  decrees,  we  shall 
rind  them  co-operating  with  each  belligerent  in  its  policy.  In  this  way, 
I  grant,  our  conduct  may  be  impartial.  But  what  has  become  of  our 
American  rights  to  navigate  the  ocean?  They  are  abandoned  in  strict 
conformity  to  the  decrees  of  both  belligerents.  This  resolution  de 
clares  that  we  will  no  longer  submit  to  such  degrading  humiliation. 
Little  as  I  relish  it,  I  will  take  it  as  the  harbinger  of  a  new  day, — the 
pledge  of  a  new  system  of  measures. 

Perhaps  here,  in  strictness,  I  ought  to  close  mv  observations.  But 
the  report  of  the  committee,  contrary  to  what  I  deem  the  principle  of 
the  resolution,  unquestionably  recommends  the  continuance  of  the 
embargo  laws.  And  such  is  the  state  of  the  nation,  and  in  particular 
that  portion  of  it  which,  in  part,  I  represent,  under  their  oppression, 
that  I  cannot  refrain  from  submitting  some  considerations  on  that 
subject. 

When  I  enter  on  the  subject  of  the  embargo,  I  am  struck  with  won 
der  at  the  very  threshold.  I  know  not  with  what  words  to  express 
my  astonishment.  At  the  time  I  departed  from  Massachusetts,  if 
there  was  an  impression  which  I  thought  universal,  it  was  that  at  the 
commencement  of  this  session  an  end  would  be  put  to  this  measure. 
The  opinion  was  not  so  much  that  it  would  be  terminated,  as  that  it 
was  then  at  an  end.  Sir,  the  prevailing  sentiment,  according  to  my 
apprehension,  was  stronger  than  this, — even  that  the  pressure  was  so 
great  that  it  could  not  possibly  be  longer  endured;  that  it  would  soon 
be  absolutely  insupportable.  And  this  opinion,  as  I  then  had  reason 


JO  SI  A II  QUIA'CY,  JR.  199 

to  believe,  was  not  confined  to  any  one  class,  or  description,  or  party, 
— even  those  who  were  friends  of  the  existing  administration,  and  un 
willing  to  abandon  it,  were  yet  satisfied  that  a  sufficient  trial  had  been 
given  to  this  measure.  With  these  impressions,  I  arrive  in  this  city. 
I  hear  the  incantation  of  the  great  enchanter.  I  feel  his  spell.  I  see 
the  legislative  machinery  begin  to  move.  The  scene  opens,  and  I  am 
commanded  to  forget  all  rny  recollections,  to  disbelieve  the  evidence 
of  my  senses,  to  contradict  what  I  have  seen,  and  heard,  and  felt.  I 
hear  that  all  this  discontent  was  merely  party  clamor, — electioneering 
artifice;  that  the  people  of  New  England  are  able  and  willing  to  endure 
this  embargo  for  an  indefinite,  unlimited  period;  some  say  for  six 
months,  some  a  year,  some  two  years.  The  gentleman  from  North 
Carolina  (Mr.  Macon)  told  us  that  he  preferred  three  years  of  em 
bargo  to  a  war.  And  the  gentleman  from  Virginia  (Mr.  Clopton)  said 
expressly,  that  he  hoped  we  should  never  allow  our  vessels  to  go  upon 
the  ocean  again,  until  the  orders  and  decrees  of  the  belligerents  were 
rescinded.  In  plain  English,  until  France  and  Great  Britain  should,  in 
their  great  condescension,  permit. — Good  Heavens  !  Mr.  Chairman, 
are  men  mad?  Is  this  House  touched  with  that  insanity  which  is  the 
never-failing  precursor  of  the  intention  of  Heaven  to  destroy?  The 
people  of  New  England,  after  eleven  months'  deprivation  of  the  ocean, 
to  be  commanded  still  longer  to  abandon  it,  for  an  undefined  period, — 
to  hold  their  inalienable  rights  at  the  tenure  of  the  will  of  Great  Britain 
or  of  Bonaparte  !  A  people  commercial  in  all  aspects,  in  all  their  re 
lations,  in  all  their  hopes,  in  all  their  recollections  of  the  past,  in  all 
their  prospects  of  the  future, — a  people,  whose  first  love  was  the  ocean, 
the  choice  of  their  childhood,  the  approbation  of  their  manly  years, 
the  most  precious  inheritance  of  their  fathers, — in  the  midst  of  their 
success,  in  the  moment  of  the  most  exquisite  perception  of  commercial 
prosperity,  to  be  commanded  to  abandon  it,  not  for  a  time  limited,  but 
fora  time  unlimited, — not  until  they  can  be  prepared  to  defend  them 
selves  there  (for  that  is  not  pretended),  but  until  their  rivals  recede 
from  it, — not  until  their  necessities  require,  but  until  foreign  .nations 
pc-rmit !  I  am  lost  in  astonishment,  Mr.  Chairman.  I  have  not  words 
to  express  the  matchless  absurdity  of  this  attempt.  I  have  no  tongue 
to  express  the  swift  and  headlong  destruction  which  a  blind  persever 
ance  in  such  a  system  must  bring  upon  this  nation. 

Mr.  Chairman,  other  gentleman  must  take  their  responsibilties — I 
shall  take  mine.  This  embargo  must  be  repealed.  You  cannot  en 
force  it  for  any  important  period  of  time  longer.  When  I  speak  of 
your  inability  to  enforce  this  law,  let  not  gentlemen  misunderstand 
me.  I  mean  not  to  intimate  insurrections  or  open  defiance  of  them. 
Although  it  is  impossible  to  foresee  in  what  acts  that  "oppression,"  will 
finally  terminate,  which,  we  are  told,  "makes  wise  men  mad,"  I 
speak  of  an  inability  resulting  from  very  different  causes. 


200  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

The  gentleman  from  North  Carolina  (Mr.  Macon)  exclaimed  the 
other  day,  in  a  strain  of  patriotic  ardor,  "What!  shall  not  our  laws 
be  executed  ?  Shall  their  authority  be  defied  ?  I  am  for  enforcing 
them  at  •every  hazard."  I  honor  that  gentleman's  zeal:  and  I  mean 
no  deviation  from  that  true  respect  I  entertain  for  him,  when  I  tell 
him,  that  in  this  instance  "his  zeal  is  not  according  to  knowledge." 

I  ask  this  House,  is  there  no  control  to  its  authority  ?  is  there  no 
limit  to  the  power  of  this  national  legislature  ?  I  hope  I  shall  offend 
no  man  when  I  intimate  that  two  limits  exist, — nature  and  the 
constitution.  Should  this  House  undertake  to  declare  that  this 
atmosphere  should  no  longer  surround  us,  that  water  should  cease  to 
flow,  that  gravity  should  not  hereafter  operate,  that  the  needle  should 
not  vibrate  to  the  pole,  I  do  suppose,  Mr.  Chairman, — Sir,  I  mean  no 
disrespect  to  the  authority  of  this  House,  I  know  the  high  notions 
some  gentlemen  entertain  on  this  subject, — I  do  suppose — Sir,  I  hope 
I  shall  not  offend — I  think  I  may  venture  to  affirm,  that,  such  a  law 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  the  air  would  continue  to  circulate, 
the  Mississippi,  the  Hudson,  and  the  Potomac  would  hurl  their  floods 
to  the  ocean,  heavy  bodies  continue  to  descend,  and  the  mysterious 
magnet  hold  on  its  course  to  its  celestial  cynosure. 

Just  as  utterly  absurd  and  contrary  to  nature  is  it  to  attempt  to 
prohibit  the  people  of  New  England,  for  any  considerable  length  of 
time,  from  the  ocean.  Commerce  is  not  only  associated  with  all  the 
feelings,  the  habits,  the  interests  and  relations  of  that  people,  but  the 
nature  of  our  soil  and  of  our  coast,  the  state  of  our  population  and 
its  mode  of  distribution  over  our  territory,  render  it  indispensable. 
We  have  five  hundred  miles  of  sea-coast;  all  furnished  with  harbors, 
bays,  creeks,  rivers,  inlets,  basins, — with  every  variety  of  invitation 
to  the  sea, — with  every  species  of  facility  to  violate  such  laws  as  these. 
Our  people  are  not  scattered  over  an  immense  surface;  at  a  solemn 
distance  from  each  other,  in  lordly  retirement,  in  the  midst  of  ex 
tended  plantations  and  intervening  wastes.  They  are  collected  on  the 
margin  of  the  ocean,  by  the  sides  of  rivers,  at  the  heads  of  bays, 
looking  into  the  water  or  on  the  surface  of  it  for  the  incitement  and 
thj  reward  of  their  industry.  Among  a  people  thus  situated,  thus 
educated,  thus  numerous,  laws  prohibiting  them  from  the  exercise  of 
I  their  natural  rights  will  have  a  binding  effect  not  one  moment  longer 
[than  the  public  sentiment  supports  them 

I  ask  in  what  page  of  the  constitution  you  find  the  power  of 
laying  an  embargo  ?  Directly  given  it  is  nowhere.  You  have  it,  then, 
by  construction,  or  by  precedent.  By  construction  of  the  power  to 
regulate.  I  lay  out  of  the  question  the  commonplace  argument,  that 
regulation  cannot  mean  annihilation;  and  that  what  is  annihilated 
cannot  be  regulated.  I  ask  this  question, — Can  a  power  be  ever 
obtained  by  construction  which  had  never  been  exercised  at  the  time 
of  the  authority  given, — the  like  of  which  had  not  only  never  been 


JO  SI  A II   Q  L'AVC  F,  JR.  2  o  I 

seen,  but  the  idea  of  which  had  never  entered  into  h'lman  imagina 
tion,  I  will  not  say  in  this  country,  but  in  the  world?  Yet  such  is 
this  power,  which  by  construction  you  assume  to  exercise.  Never 
before  did  society  witness  a  total  prohibition  of  all  intercourse  like 
this  in  a  commercial  nation.  Did  the  people  of  the  United  States 
invest  this  House. with  a  power  of  which  at  the  time  of  investment 
that  people  had  not  and  could  not  have  had  any  idea?  For  even  in 
works  of  fiction  it  had  never  existed. 

But  it  has  been  asked  in  debate,  "will  not  Massachusetts,  the 
cradle  of  liberty,  submit  to  such  privations?"  An  embargo  liberty 
was  never  cradled  in  Massachusetts.  Our  liberty  was  not  so  much  a 
mountain  as  a  sea  nymph.  She  was  as  free  as  air.  She  could  swim, 
or  she  could  run.  The  ocean  was  her  cradle  ?  Our  fathers  met  her 
as  she  came,  like  the  goddess  of  beauty,  from  the  waves.  They 
caught  her  as  she  was  sporting  on  the  beach.  They  courted  her 
whilst  she  was  spreading  her  nets  upon  the  rocks.  But  an  embargo 
liberty,  a  handcuffed  liberty,  a  liberty  in  fetters,  a  liberty  traversing 
between  four  sides  of  a  prison,  and  beating  her  head  against  the 
walls,  is  none  of  our  offspring.  We  abjure  the  monster.  Its  parent 
age  is  all  inland. 

"The  gentleman  from  North  Carolina  (Mr.  Macon)  exclaimed  the 
other  day,  "Where  is  the  spirit  of  '76  ?"  Ay,  sir;  where  is  it  ?  Would 
to  Heaven  that  at  our  invocation  it  would  condescend  to  alight  on  this 
floor.  But  let  gentlemen  remember,  that  the  spirit  of  '76  was  not  a 
spirit  of  empty  declamation,  or  of  abstract  propositions.  It  did  not 
content  itself  with  non-importation  acts,  or  non-intercourse  laws.  It 
was  a  spirit  of  active  preparation,  of  dignified  energy.  It  studied 
both  to  know  our  rights  and  to  devise  the  effectual  means  of  maintain 
ing  them.  In  all  the  annals  of  '76,  you  will  find  no  such  degrading 
doctrine  as  that  maintained  in  this  report.  It  never  presented  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States  the  alternative  of  war  or  a  suspension  of 
our  rights,  and  recommend  the  latter  rather  than  to  incur  risk  of  the 
former.  What  was  the  language  of  that  period  in  one  of  the  addresses 
of  Congress  to  Great  Britain?  "You  attempt  to  reduce  us  by  the 
sword  to  base  and  abject  submission.  On  the  sword,  therefore,  we 
rely  for  protection."  In  that  day  there  were  no  alternatives  presented 
to  dishearten, — no  abandonment  of  our  rights  under  the  pretence  of 
maintaining  them, — no  gaining  the  battle  by  running  away.  In  the 
whole  history  of  that  period  there  are  no  such  terms  as  "  embargo, — 
dignified  retirement, — trying  who  can  do  each  other  the  most  harm." 
At  that  time  we  had  a  navy, — that  name  so  odious  to  the  influences  of 
the  present  day.  Yes,  Sir,  in  1776,  though  but  in  our  infancy,  we  had 
a  navy  scouring  our  coasts,  and  defending  our  commerce,  which  was 
never  for  one  moment  wholly  suspended.  In  1776  we  had  an  army 
also;  and  a  glorious  army  it  was!  not  composed  of  men  halting  from 
the  stews,  or  swept  from  the  jails,  but  of  the  best  blood,  the  real  yeo- 


202  AMERICAN  2>ATRIOTISM. 

manry  of  the  country,  noble  cavaliers,  men  without  fear,  and  without 
reproach.  We  had  such  an  army  in  1776,  and  Washington  was  at  its 
head.  We  have  an  army  in  1808,  and  a  head  to  it. 

I  will  not  humiliate  those  who  lead  the  fortunes  of  the  nation  at  the 
present  day  by  any  comparison  with  the  great  men  of  that  period.  But 
I  recommend  the  advocates  of  the  present  system  of  public  measures 
to  study  well  the  true  spirit  of  1776,  before  they  venture  to  call  it  in  aid 
of  their  purposes.  It  may  bring  in  its  train  some  recollections  not 
suited  to  give  ease  or  hope  to  their  bosoms.  I  beg  gentlemen  who  are 
so  frequent  in  their  recurrence  to  that  period  to  remember,  that  among 
the  causes  which  led  to  a  separation  from  Great  Britain  the  following 
are  enumerated-  Unnecessary  restrictions  upon  trade;  cutting  off  com 
mercial  intercourse  between  the  colonies;  embarrassing  our  fisheries; 
wantonly  depriving  our  citizens  of  necessaries;  invasion  of  private  pro 
perty  by  governmental  edicts;  the  authority  of  the  commander-in- 
chief,  and  under  him  of  the  brigadier-general,  being  rendered  supreme 
in  the  civil  government;  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  made 
governor  of  a  colony;  citizens  transferred  from  their  native  country 
for  trial.  Let  the  gentlemen  beware  how  they  appeal  to  the  spirit  of 
'76;  lest  it  come  with  the  aspect,  not  of  a  friend,  but  of  a  tormentor, — 
lest  they  find  a  warning  when  they  look  for  support,  aqd  instead  of  en 
couragement  they  are  presented  with  an  awful  lesson. 

Let  me  ask,  Is  embargo  independence  ?  Deceive  not  yourselves. 
It  is  palpable  submission.  Gentlemen  exclaim,  Great  Britain  "smites 
us  on  one  cheek."  And  what  does  Administration?  "It  turns  the 
other  also."  Gentlemen  say,  Great  Britain  is  a  robber,  she  "  takes  our 
cloak."  And  what  says  Administration?  "  Let  her  take  our  coat  also." 
France  and  Great  Britain  require  you  to  relinquish  a  part  of  your  com 
merce,  and  you  yield  it  entirely.  Sir,  this  conduct  may  be  the  way  to 
dignity  and  honor  in  another  world,  but  it  will  never  secure  safety  and 
independence  in  this. 

At  every  corner  of  this  great  city  we  meet  some  gentlemen  of  the 
majority,  wringing  their  hands  and  exclaiming,  "What  shall  we  do  ? 
Nothing  but  embargo  will  save  us.  Remove  it,  and  what  shall  we  do  ?" 
Sir,  it  is  not  for  me,  an  humble  and  uninfluential  individual,  at  an  aw 
ful  distance  from  the  predominant  influences,  to  suggest  plans  of 
government.  But  to  my  eye  the  path  of  our  duty  is  as  distinct  as  the 
milky  way, — all  studded  with  living  sapphires,  glowing  with  cumulat 
ing  light.  It  is  the  path  of  active  preparation,  of  dignified  energy.  It 
is  the  path  of  1776.  It  consists,  not  in  abandoning  our  rights,  but  in 
supporting  them,  as  they  exist,  and  where  they  exist, — on  the  ocea  as 
well  as  on  the  land.  It  consists  in  taking  the  nature  of  things  as  the 
measure  of  the  rights  of  your  citizens,  not  the  orders  and  decrees  of  im 
perious  foreigners.  Give  what  protection  you  can.  Take  no  counsel 


JO  SI  A 11   QUINCY,  JR.  203 

of  fear.  Your  strength  will  increase  with  the  trial,  and  prove  greater 
than  you  are  now  aware. 

But  I  shall  be  told,  "  This  may  lead  to  war."  I  ask,  "  Are  we  now 
at  peace?"  Certainly  not,  unless  retiring  from  insult  be  peace, — unless 
shrinking  under  the  lash  be  peace.  The  surest  way  to  prevent  war  is 
not  to  fear  it.  The  idea  that  nothing  on  earth  is  so  dreadful  as  war  is 
inculcated  too  studiously  among  us.  Disgrace  is  worse.  Abandon 
ment  of  essential  rights  is  worse. 

Sir,  I  could  not  refrain  from  seizing  the  first  opportunity  of  spread 
ing  before  this  House  the  sufferings  and  exigencies  of  New  England 
under  this  embargo.  Some  gentlemen  may  deem  it  not  strictly  before 
us.  It  is  my  opinion  it  is  necessarily.  For,  if  the  idea  of  the  com 
mittee  be  correct,  and  embargo  is  resistance,  then  this  resolution  sanc 
tions  its  continuance.  If,  on  the  contrary,  as  I  contend,  embargo  is 
submission,  then  this  resolution  is  a  pledge  of  its  repeal. 


MARITIME  PROTECTION. 
JOSIAH  QUINCY,  JR. 

Washington,  January  25,  1812. 

If  this  commerce  were  the  mushroom  growth  of  a  night,  if  it  had  its 
vigor  from  the  temporary  excitement  and  the  accumulated  nutriment 
which  warring  elements  in  Europe  had  swept  from  the  places  of  their 
natural  deposit,  then,  indeed,  there  might  be  some  excuse  for  a  tem 
porizing  policy  touching  so  transitory  an  interest.  But  commerce  in 
the  Eastern  States  is  of  no  foreign  growth,  and  of  no  adventitious 
seed.  Its  root  is  of  a  fibre  which  almost  two  centuries  have  nour 
ished;  and  the  perpetuity  of  its  destiny  is  written  in  legible  character; 
as  well  in  the  nature  of  the  country  as  in  the  dispositions  of  its  in 
habitants.  Indeed,  sir,  look  along  your  whole  coast,  from  Passama- 
quoddy  to  Capes  Henry  and  Charles,  and  behold  the  deep  and  far- 
winding  creeks  and  inlets,  the  noble  basins,  the  projecting  headlands, 
the  majestic  rivers,  and  those  sounds  and  bays  which  are  more  like 
inland  seas  than  like  anything  called  by  those  names  in  other  quarters 
of  the  globe.  Can  any  man  do  this  and  not  realize  that  the  destiny  of 
the  people  inhabiting  such  a  country  is  essentially  maritime?  Can 
any  man  do  this  without  being  impressed  by  the  conviction  that,  al 
though  the  poor  projects  of  politicians  may  embarrass,  for  a  time,  the 
dispositions  growing  out  of  the  condition  of  such  a  country,  yet  that 
Nature  will  be  too  strong  for  cobweb  regulation  and  will  vindicate 
her  rights  with  certain  effect, — -perhaps  with  awful  perils  ?  No  nation 
ever  did  or  ever  ought  to  resist  such  allurements  and  invitations  to  a 
particular  mode  of  industry. 


204  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

The  purposes  of  Providence  relative  to  the  destination  of  men  are 
to  be  gathered  from  the  circumstances  in  which  his  beneficence  has 
placed  them.  And  to  refuse  to  make  use  of  the  means  of  prosperity 
which  his  goodness  has  put  into  our  hands,  what  is  it  but  spurning  at 
his  bounty,  and  rejecting  the  blessings  which  his  infinite  wisdom 
has  designated  for  us  by  the  very  nature  of  his  allotments  ?  The 
employments  of  industry  connected  with  navigation  and  commercial 
enterprise  are  precious  to  the  people  of  that  quarter  of  the  country  by 
ancient  prejudice,  not  less  than  by  recent  profit.  The  occupation  is 
rendered  dear  and  venerable  by  all  the  cherished  associations  of  our 
infancy,  and  all  the  sage  and  prudential  maxims  of  our  ancestors. 
And  as  to  the  lessons  of  encouragement  derived  from  recent  experi 
ence,  what  nation  ever  within  a  similar  period  received  so  many  that 
were  sweet  and  salutary  ?  What  nation  in  so  short  a  time  ever  before 
ascended  to  such  a  height  of  commercial  greatness  ? 

It  has  been  said  by  some  philosophers  of  the  other  hemisphere 
that  Nature  in  this  New  World  had  worked  by  a  sublime  scale;  that 
our  mountains  and  rivers  and  lakes  were  beyond  all  comparison  greater 
than  anything  the  Old  World  could  boast;  that  she  had  here  made 
nothing  diminutive — except  its  animals.  And  ought  we  not  to  fear 
lest  the  bitterness  of  this  sarcasm  should  be  concentrated  on  our 
country  by  a  course  of  policy  wholly  unworthy  of  the  magnitude  and 
nature  of  the  interests  committed  to  our  guardianship?  Have  we  not 
reason  to  fear  that  some  future  cynic,  with  an  asperity  which  truth 
shall  make  piercing,  will  declare,  that  all  things  in  these  United  States 
are  great — except  its  statesmen  ?  and  that  we  are  pygmies  to  whom 
Providence  has  intrusted,  for  some  inscrutable  purpose,  gigantic 
labors  ?  Can  we  deny  the  justice  of  such  severity  of  remark,  if,  in 
stead  of  adopting  a  scale  of  thought  and  a  standard  of  action  propor 
tionate  to  the  greatness  of  our  trust  and  the  multiplied  necessities  of 
the  people,  we  bring  to  our  task  the  mere  measures  of  professional  in 
dustry,  and  mete  out  contributions  for  national  safety  by  our  fee-tables, 
our  yard-sticks,  and  our  gill-pots  Can  we  refrain  from  subscribing 
to  the  truth  of  such  censure,  if  we  do  not  rise  in  some  degree  to  the 
height  of  our  obligations,  and  teach  ourselves  to  conceive,  and  with 
the  people  to  realize,  the  vastness  of  those  relations  which  are  daily 
springing  among  states  which  are  not  so  much  one  empire  as  a  con 
gregation  of  empires  ? 

While  I  am  on  this  point,  I  cannot  refrain  from  noticing  a  strange 
solecism  which  seems  to  prevail  touching  the  term  flag.  It  is  talked 
about  as  though  there  was  something  mystical  in  its  very  nature, — as 
though  a  rag  with  certain  stripes  and  stars  on  it  tied  to  a  stick,  and 
called  a  flag,  was  a  wizard  wand,  and  entailed  security  on  everything 
under  it  or  within  its  sphere.  There  is  nothing  like  all  this  in  the 
nature  of  the  thing.  A  flag  is  the  evidence  of  power  ?  A  land  flag  is 


JO  SI  A  If  QUINCY,  JA\  205 

evidence  of  land  power.  A  maritime  flag  is  evidence  of  maritime 
power.  You  may  have  a  piece  of  bunting  upon  a  staff,  and  call  it  a 
flag,  but  if  you  have  no  maritime  power  to  maintain  it,  you  have  a 
name  and  no  reality;  you  have  the  shadow  without  the  substance; 
you  have  the  sign  of  a  flag,  but  in  truth  you  have  no  flag. 

Mr.  Speaker,  can  any  one  contemplate  the  exigency  which  at  this 
day  depresses  our  country,  and  for  one  moment  deem  it  exceptional] 
The  degree  of  such  commercial  exigencies  may  vary,  but  they  must 
always  exist.  It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  such  a  population  as  is  that 
of  the  Atlantic  States  can  be  either  driven  or  decoyed  from  the  ocean. 
It  is  just  as  absurd  to  imagine  that  wealth  will  not  invite  cupidity,  and 
that  weakness  will  not  insure  both  insult  and  plunder.  The  circum 
stances  of  our  age  make  this  truth  signally  impressive.  Who  does  not 
see  in  the  conduct  of  Europe  a  general  departure  from  those  common 
principles  which  once  constituted  national  morality  ?  What  is  safe 
which  power  can  seize  or  ingenuity  can  circumvent  ?  or  what  truths 
more  palpable  than  these  :  that  there  is  no  safety  for  national  rights 
but  in  the  national  arm,  and  that  important  interests  systematically 
pursued  must  be  systematically  protected  ? 

Touching  that  branch  of  interest  which  is  most  precious  to  com 
mercial  men,  it  is  impossible  that  there  can  be  any  mistake.  For, 
however  dear  the  interests  of  property  or  of  life  exposed  upon  the 
ocean  may  be  to  their  owners  or  their  friends,  yet  the  safety  of  our 
altars  and  of  our  firesides,  of  our  cities  and  of  our  sea-board,  must, 
from  the  nature  of  things,  be  entwined  with  the  affections  by  ties  in 
comparably  more  strong  and  tender.  And  it  happens  that  both  na 
tional  pride  and  honor  are  peculiarly  identified  with  the  support  of  these 
primary  objects  of  commercial  interest. 

"  It  is  in  this  view,  I  state,  that  the  first  and  most  important  object 
of  the  nation  ought  to  be  such  a  naval  force  as  shall  give  such  a  degree 
of  national  security  as  the  nature  of  the  subject  admits  to  our  cities 
and  seaboard,  and  coasting  trade;  that  the  system  of  maritime  protec 
tion  ought  to  rest  on  this  basis;  and  that  it  should  not  attempt  to  go 
further  until  these  objects  are  secured.  And  I  have  no  hesitation  to 
declare  that,  until  such  a  maritime  force  be  systematically  maintained 
by  this  nation,  it  shamefully  neglects  its  most  important  duties  and 
most  critical  interests. 

But,  it  is  inquired,  What  effect  will  this  policy  have  upon  the  pres 
ent  exigency?  I  answer,  the  happiest  in  every  respect.  To  exhibit  a 
definitive  intent  to  maintain  maritime  rights  by  maritime  means,  what 
is  it  but  to  develop  new  stamina  of  national  character  ?  No  nation 
can  have  or  has  a  right  to  hope  for  respect  from  others  which  does  not 


206  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

first  learn  to  respect  itself.  And  how  is  this  to  be  attained  ?  By  a 
course  of  conduct  conformable  to  its  duties,  and  relative  to  its  con 
dition.  If  it  abandons  what  it  ought  to  defend,  if  it  flies  from  the  field 
it  is  bound  to  maintain,  how  can  it  hope  for  honor  ?  To  what  other 
inheritance  is  it  entitled  but  disgrace  ?  Foreign  nations  undoubtedly 
look  upon  this  Union  with  eyes  long  read  in  the  history  of  man,  and 
with  thoughts  deeply  versed  in  the  effects  of  passion  and  interest  upon 
independent  states,  associated  by  ties  so  apparently  slight  and  novel. 
They  understand  well  that  the  rivalries  among  the  great  interests  of 
such  states — the  natural  envyings  which  in  all  countries  spring  up  be 
tween  agriculture,  commerce,  and  manufactures — the  inevitable  jeal 
ousies  and  fears  of  each  other  of  South  and  North,  interior  and  sea 
board  ;  the  incipient  or  progressive  rancor  of  party  animosity — are 
the  essential  weaknesses  of  sovereignties  thus  combined.  Whether 
these  causes  shall  operate,  or  whether  they  shall  cease,  foreign  nations 
will  gather  from  the  features  of  our  policy.  They  cannot  believe  that 
such  a  nation  is  strong  in  the  affections  of  its  associated  parts  when 
they  see  the  vital  interests  of  whole  states  abandoned.  But  reverse 
this  policy;  show  a  definitive  and  stable  intent  to  yield  the  natural 
protection  to  such  essential  interests;  then  they  will  respect  you.  And 
to  powerful  nations  honor  comes  attended  by  safety. 

Mr.  Speaker,  what  is  national  disgrace  ?  Of  what  stuff  is  it  com 
posed  ?  Is  a  nation  disgraced  because  its  flag  is  insulted — because  its 
seamen  are  impressed — because  its  course  upon  the  highway  of  the 
ocean  is  obstructed  ?  No,  sir.  Abstractly  considered,  a'l  this  is  not 
disgrace.  Because  all  this  may  happen  to  a  nation  so  weak  as  not  to 
be  able  to  maintain  the  dignity  of  its  flag,  or  the  freedom  of  its  citi 
zens,  or  the  safety  of  its  course.  Natural  weakness  is  never  disgrace. 
But,  sir,  this  is  disgrace:  when  we  submit  to  insult  and  to  injury  which 
we  have  the  power  to  prevent  or  redress.  Its  essential  constituents 
are  want  of  sense  or  want  of  spirit.  When  a  nation  with  ample 
means  for  its  defence  is  so  thick  in  the  brain  as  not  to  put  them  into  a 
suitable  state  of  preparation;  or  when,  with  sufficient  muscular  force, 
it  is  so  tame  in  spirit  as  to  seek  safety,  not  in  manly  effort,  but  in  re 
tirement,  then  a  nation  is  disgraced  ;  then  it  shrinks  from  its  high  and 
sovereign  character  into  that  of  the  tribe  of  Issachar,  crouching  down 
between  two  burdens — the  French  burden  on  the  one  side  and  the 
British  on  the  other — so  dull,  so  lifeless,  so  stupid  that,  were  it  not  for 
its  braying,  it  could  not  be  distinguished  from  the  clod  of  the 
valley. 

The  general  effect  of  the  policy  I  advocate  is  to  produce  confidence 
at  home,  and  respect  abroad.  These  are  twin  shoots  from  the  same 
stock,  and  never  fail  to  flourish  or  fade  together.  Confidence  is  a  plant 
of  no  mushroom  growth  and  of  no  artificial  texture.  It  springs  only 
from  sage  counsels  and  generous  endeavors.  The  protection  you  ex.* 


JO  SI  AH   QUIA'CY,  JR.  207 

tend  must  be  efficient,  and  suited  to  the  nature  of  the  object  you  pro 
fess  to  maintain.  If  it  be  neither  adequate  nor  appropriate,  your  wis 
dom  will  be  doubted,  your  motives  will  be  distrusted,  and  in  vain  you 
will  expect  confidence.  The  inhabitants  of  the  seaboard  will  inquire  of 
their  own  senses,  and  not  of  your  logic,  concerning  the  reality  of  their 
protection. 

As  to  respect  abroad,  what  course  can  be  more  certain  to  insure  it  ! 
What  object  more  honorable,  what  more  dignified,  than  to  behold  a 
great  nation  pursuing  wise  ends  by  appropriate  means, — rising  to 
adopt  a  series  of  systematic  exertions  suited  to  her  power,  and  adequate 
to  her  purposes  ?  What  object  more  consolatory  to  the  friends,  what 
more  paralyzing  to  the  enemies,  of  our  Union,  than  to  behold  the  natu 
ral  jealousies  and  rivalries 'which  are  the  acknowledged  dangers  of  our 
political  condition  subsiding  or  sacrificing?  What  sight  more  exhilar 
ating  than  to  see  this  great  nation  once  more  walking  forth  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth  under  the  protection  of  r.o  foreign  shield  ? 
Peaceful,  because  powerful.  Powerful,  because  united  in  interests  and 
amalgamated  by  concentration  of  those  interests  in  the  national  affec 
tions. 

But  let  the  opposite  policy  prevail;  let  the  essential  interests  of  the 
great  component  parts  of  this  Union  find  no  protection  under  the  na 
tional  arm;  instead  of  safety  let  them  realize  oppression, — and  the 
sceds'of  discord  and  dissolution  are  inevitably  sown  in  a  soil  the  best 
fitted  for  their  root,  and  affording  the  richest  nourishment  for  their  ex 
pansion.  It  may  be  a  long  time  before  they  ripen.  But  sooner  or 
later  they  will  assuredly  burst  forth  in  all  their  destructive  energies.  In 
the  intermediate  period,  what  aspect  does  a  union  thus  destitute  of 
cement  present?  Is  it  that  of  a  nation  keen  to  discern,  and  strong  to 
resist,  violations  of  its  sovereignty  ?  It  has  rather  the  appearance  of  a 
casual  collection  of  semi-barbarous  clans,  with  the  forms  of  civilization 
and  the  rude  and  rending  passions  of  the  savage  state.  In  truth, 
powerful,  yet,  as  to  any  foreign  affect,  imbecile.  Rich  in  the  goods  of 
fortune,  yet  wanting  that  inherent  spirit  without  which  a  nation  is  poor 
indeed;  their  strength  exhausted  by  struggles  for  local  power;  their 
moral  sense  debased  by  low  intrigues  for  personal  popularity  or  tem 
porary  pre-eminence;  all  their  thoughts  turned,  not  to  the  safety  of  the 
State,  but  to  the  elevation  of  a  chieftain.  A  people  presenting  such  an 
aspect, — what  have  they  to  expect  abroad  ?  What  but  pillage,  insult, 
and  scorn  ? 

The  choice  is  before  us.  Persist  in  refusing  efficient  maritime  pro 
tection;  persist  in  the  system  of  commercial  restrictions;  what  now  is 
perhaps  anticipation  will  hereafter  be  history. 


208  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 


LAYING    THE    CORNER-STONE    OF    THE    BUNKER    HILL 
MONUMENT. 

DANIEL    WEBSTER. 

Chcirlestown^  June  17,  1825. 

This  uncounted  multitude  before  me,  and  around  me,  proves  the 
feeling  which  the  occasion  has  excited.  These  thousands  of  human 
faces,  glowing  with  sympathy  and  joy,  and,  from  the  impulses  of  a 
common  gratitude,  turned  reverently  to  heaven,  in  this  spacious  tem 
ple  of  the  firmament,  proclaim  that  the  day,  the  place,  and  the  purpose 
of  our  assembling,  have  made  a  deep  impression  on  our  hearts. 

If,  indeed,  there  be  any  thing  in  local  association  fit  to  affect  the 
mind  of  man,  we  need  not  strive  to  repress  the  emotions  which  agitate 
us  here.  We  are  among  the  sepulchres  of  our  fathers.  We  are  on 
ground  distinguished  by  their  valor,  their  constancy,  and  the  shedding 
of  their  blood.  We  are  here,  not  to  fix  an  uncertain  date  in  our  an 
nals,  nor  to  draw  into  notice  an  obscure  and  unknown  spot.  If  our 
humble  purpose  had  never  been  conceived,  if  we  ourselves  had  never 
been  born,  the  iyth  of  June,  1775,  would  have  been  a  day  on  which  all 
subsequent  history  would  have  poured  its  light,  and  the  eminence 
where  we  stand,  a  point  of  attraction  to  the  eyes  of  successive  genera 
tions.  But  we  are  Americans.  We  live  in  what  may  be  called  the 
early  age  of  this  great  continent;  and  we  know  that  our  posterity, 
through  all  time,  are  here  to  suffer  and  enjoy  the  allotments  of  hu 
manity.  Wre  see  before  us  a  probable  train  of  great  events;  we  know 
that  our  own  fortunes  have  been  happily  cast;  and  it  is  natural,  there 
fore,  that  we  should  be  moved  by  the  contemplation  of  occurrences 
which  have  guided  our  destiny  before  many  of  us  were  born,  and  set 
tled  the  condition  in  which  we  should  pass  that  portion  of  our  exist 
ence,  which  God  allows  to  men  on  earth. 

We  do  not  read  even  of  the  discovery  of  this  continent  without  feel 
ing  something  of  a  personal  interest  in  the  event;  without  being  re 
minded  how  much  it  has  affected  our  own  fortunes,  and  our  own  ex 
istence.  It  is  more  impossible  for  us,  therefore,  than  for  others,  to 
contemplate  with  unaffected  minds  that  interesting,  I  may  say,  that 
most  touching  and  pathetic,  scene,  when  the  great  discoverer  of 
America  stood  on  the  deck  of  his  shattered  bark,  the  shades  of  night 
falling  on  the  sea,  yet  no  man  sleeping — tossed  on  the  billows  of  an 
unknown  ocean,  yet  the  stronger  billows  of  alternate  hope  and  despair 
tossing  his  own  troubled  thoughts— extending  forward  his  harassed 
frame,  straining  westward  his  anxious  and  eager  eyes,  till  Heaven  at 
last  granted  him  a  moment  of  rapture  and  ecstacy,  in  blessing  his 
vision  with  the  sight  of  the  unknown  world. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  209 

Nearer  to  our  times,  more  closely  connected  with  our  fates,  and 
therefore  still  more  interesting  to  our  feelings  and  affections,  is  the 
settlement  of  our  own  country  by  colonists  from  England.  We  cher 
ish  every  memorial  of  these  worthy  ancestors;  we  celebrate  their  pa 
tience  and  fortitude;  we  admire  their  daring  enterprise;  we  teach  our 
children  to  venerate  their  piety;  and  we  are  justly  proud  of  being  de 
scended  from  men  who  have  set  the  world  an  example  of  founding 
civil  institutions  on  the  great  and  united  principles  of  human  freedom 
and  human  knowledge.  To  us,  their  children,  the  story  of  their  labors 
and  sufferings  can  never  be  without  its  interest.  We  shall  not  stand 
unmoved  on  the  shore  of  Plymouth,  while  the  sea  continues  to  wash 
it;  nor  will  our  brethren  in  another  early  and  ancient  colony,  forget 
the  place  of  its  first  establishment,  till  their  river  shall  cease  to  flow  by 
it.  No  vigor  of  youth,  no  maturity  of  manhood,  will  lead  the  nation 
to  forget  the  spots  where  its  infancy  was  cradled  and  defended. 

But  the  great  event  in  the  history  of  the  continent,  which  we  are 
now  met  here  to  commemorate, — that  prodigy  of  modern  times,  at 
once  the  wonder  and  the  blessing  of  the  world, — is  the  American 
revolution.  In  a  day  of  extraordinary  prosperity  and  happiness,  of 
high  national  honor,  distinction  and  power,  we  are  brought  together, 
in  this  place,  by  our  love  of  country,  by  our  admiration  of  exalted 
character,  by  our  gratitude  for  signal  services  and  patriotic  devo 
tion. 

The  society,  whose  organ  I  am,  was  formed  for  the  purpose  of 
rearing  some  honorable  and  durable  monument  to  the  memory  of  the 
early  friends  of  American  independence.  They  have  thought  that,  for 
this  subject,  no  time  could  be  more  propitious  than  the  present  pros 
perous  and  peaceful  period;  that  no  place  could  claim  preference  over 
this  memorable  spot;  and  that  no  day  could  be  more  auspicious  to 
the  undertaking,  than  the  anniversary  of  the  battle  which  was  here 
fought.  The  foundation  of  that  monument  we  have  now  laid.  With 
solemnities  suited  to  the  occasion,  with  prayers  to  Almighty  God  for 
his  blessing;  and  in  the  midst  of  this  cloud  of  witnesses,  we  have  be- 
^un  the  work.  We  trust  it  will  be  prosecuted, — and  that,  springing 
from  a  broad  foundation,  rising  high  in  massive  solidity  and  unadorned 
grandeur,  it  may  remain,  as  long  as  Heaven  permits  the  work  of  mar; 
to  last,  a  fit  emblem,  both  of  the  events  in  memory  of  which  it  is 
raised,  and  of  the  gratitude  of  those  who  have  reared  it. 

We  know,  indeed,  that  the  record  of  illustrious  actions  is  most 
safely  deposited  in  the  universal  remembrance  of  mankind.  We 
know,  that  if  we  could  cause  this  structure  to  ascend,  not  only  till  it 
reached  the  skies,  but  till  it  pierced  them,  its  broad  surfaces  could  still 
contain  but  part  of  that,  which,  in  an  age  of  knowledge,  hath  already 
been  spread  over  the  earth,  and  which  history  charges  itself  with  mak 
ing  known  to  all  future  times.  We  know,  that  no  inscription  on  en 
tablatures  less  broad  than  the  earth  itself,  can  carry  information  of  the 


210  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

events  we  commemora'e,  where  it  has  not  already  gone;  and  that  no 
structure,  which  shall  not  outlive  the  duration  of  letters  and  knowledge 
among  men,  can  prolong  the  memorial.  But  our  object  is,  by  this 
edifice  to  show  our  own  deep  sense  of  the  value  and  importance  of  the 
achievements  of  our  ancestors;  and,  by  presenting  this  work  of  grati 
tude  to  the  eye,  to  keep  alive  similar  sentiments,  and  to  foster  a  con 
stant  regard  for  the  principles  of  the  revolution.  Human  beings  are 
composed  not  of  reason  only,  but  of  imagination  also,  and  sentiment; 
and  that  is  neither  wasted  nor  misapplied  which  is  appropriated  to  the 
purpose  of  giving  right  direction  to  sentiments,  and  opening  proper 
springs  of  feeling  in  the  heart.  Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  our  object 
is  to  perpetuate  national  hostility,  or  even  to  cherish  a  mere  military 
spirit..  It  is  higher,  purer,  nobler.  We  consecrate  our  work  to  the 
spirit  of  national  independence,  and  we  wish  that  the  light  of  peace 
may  rest  upon  it  forever.  We  rear  a  memorial  of  our  conviction  of 
that  unmeasured  benefit,  which  has  been  conferred  on  our  own  land, 
and  of  the  happy  influences,  which  have  been  produced,  by  the  same 
events,  on  the  general  interests  of  mankind.  We  come,  as  Ameri 
cans,  to  mark  a  spot,  which  must  forever  be  dear  to  us  and  our  pos 
terity  We  wish  that  whosoever,  in  all  coming  time,  shall  turn  his  eye 
hither,  may  behold  that  the  place  is  not  undistinguished,  where  the 
first  great  battle  of  the  revolution  was  fought.  We  wish  that  this 
structure  may  proclaim  the  magnitude  and  importance  of  that  event, 
to  every  class  and  every  age.  We  wish  that  infancy  may  learn  the 
purpose  of  its  erection  from  maternal  lips,  and  that  weary  and  withered 
age  may  behold  it,  and  be  solaced  by  the  recollections  which  it  sug 
gests.  We  wish  that  labor  may  look  up  here,  and  be  proud,  in  the 
midst  of  its  toil.  We  wish  that,  in  those  days  of  disaster,  which,  as 
they  come  on  all  nations,  must  be  expected  to  come  on  us  also,  de 
sponding  patriotism  may  turn  its  eyes  hitherward,  and  be  assured  that 
the  foundations  of  our  national  power  still  stand  strong.  We  wish 
that  this  column,  rising  towards  heaven  among  the  pointed  spires  of 
so  many  temples  dedicated  to  God,  may  contribute  also  to  produce,  in 
all  minds,  a  pious  feeling  of  dependence  and  gratitude.  We  wish, 
finally,  that  the  last  object  on  the  sight  of  him  who  leaves  his  native 
shore,  and  the  first  to  gladden  his  who  revisits  it,  may  be  something 
which  shall  remind  him  of  the  liberty  and  the  glory  of  his  country. 
Let  it  rise,  till  it  meet  the  sun  in  his  coming;  let  the  earliest  light  of 
the  morning  gild  it.  and  parting  day  linger  and  play  on  its  summit. 

We  live  in  a  most  extraordinary  age.  Events  so  various  and  so  im 
portant,  that  they  might  crowd  and  distinguish  centuries,  are,  in  our 
times,  compressed  within  the  compass  of  a  single  life.  When  has  it 
happened  that  history  has  had  so  much  to  record,  in  the  same  term  of 
years,  or  since  the  lyth  of  June,  1775?  Our  own  revolution,  which, 
under  other  circumstances,  might  itself  have  been  expected  to  occasion 
a  war  of  half  a  century,  has  been  achieved;  twenty-four  sovereign  and 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  211 

independent  states  erected;  and  a  general  government  established  over 
them,  so  safe,  so  wise,  so  free,  so  practical,  that  we  might  well  wonder 
its  establishment  should  have  been  accomplished  so  soon,  were  it  not 
for  the  greater  wonder  that  it  should  have  been  established  at  all.  Two 
or  three  millions  of  people  have  been  augmented  to  twelve;  and  the 
great  forests  of  the  west  prostrated  beneath  the  arm  of  successful  indus 
try;  and  the  dwellers  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi 
become  the  fellow-citizens  and  neighbors  of  those  who  cultivate  the 
hills  of  New  England.  We  have  a  commerce  that  leaves  no  sea  unex 
plored;  navies  which  take  no  law  from  superior  force;  revenues  ade 
quate  to  all  the  exigencies  of  government,  almost  without  taxation; 
and  peace  with  all  nations,  founded  on  equal  rights  and  mutual  respect. 

Europe,  within  the  same  period,  has  been  agitated  by  a  mighty 
revolution,  which,  while  it  has  been  felt  in  the  individual  condition 
and  happiness  of  almost  every  man,  has  shaken  to  the  centre  her  po 
litical  fabric,  and  dashed  against  one  another  thrones  which  had  stood 
tranquil  for  ages.  On  this,  our  continent,  our  own  example  has  been 
followed;  and  colonies  have  sprung  up  to  be  nations.  Unaccustomed 
sounds  of  liberty  and  free  government  have  reached  us  from  beyond 
the  track  of  the  sun;  and  at  this  moment  the  dominion  of  European 
power,  in  this  continent,  from  the  place  where  we  stand  to  the  south 
pole,  is  annihilated  forever. 

In  the  mean  time,  both  in  Europe  and  America,  such  has  been  the 
general  progress  of  knowledge;  such  the  improvements  in  legislation, 
in  commerce,  in  the  arts,  in  letters,  and  above  all,  in  liberal  ideas, 
and  the  general  spirit  of  the  age,  that  the  whole  world  seems  changed. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  that  this  is  but  a  faint  abstract  of  the  things 
which  have  happened  since  the  day  of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  we 
are  but  fifty  years  removed  from  it;  and  we  now  stand  here,  to  enjoy 
all  the  blessings  of  our  own  condition,  and  to  look  abroad  on  the 
brightened  prospects  of  the  world,  while  we  hold  still  among  us  some 
of  those,  who  were  active  agents  in  the  scenes  of  1775,  and  who  are 
now  here,  from  every  quarter  of  New  England,  to  visit,  once  more, 
and  under  circumstances  so  affecting,  I  had  almost  said  so  overwhelm 
ing,  this  renowned  theatre  of  their  courage  and  patriotism. 

Venerable  men!  you  have  come  down  to  us,  from  a  former  genera 
tion.  Heaven  has  bounteously  lengthened  out  your  lives,  that  you 
might  behold  this  joyous  day.  You  are  now  where  you  stood  fifty 
years  ago,  this  very  hour,  with  your  brothers,  and  your  neighbors, 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  in  the  strife  for  your  country.  Behold,  how 
altered!  The  same  heavens  are  indeed  over  your  heads;  the  same 
ocean  rolls  at  your  feet;  but  all  else,  how  changed!  You  hear  now 
no  roar  of  hostile  cannon,  you  see  no  mixed  volumes  of  smoke  and 
flame  rising  from  burning  Charlestown.  The  ground  strewed  with 
the  dead  and  the  dying;  the  impetuous  charge;  the  steady  and  suc 
cessful  repulse;  the  loud  call  to  repeated  assault;  the  summoning  of 


212  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

all  that  is  manly  to  repeated  resistance;  a  thousand  bosoms  freely  and 
fearlessly  bared  in  an  instant  to  whatever  of  terror  there  may  be  in 
war  and  death; — all  these  you  have  witnessed,  but  you  witness  them 
no  more.  All  is  peace.  The  heights  of  yonder  metropolis,  its  towers 
and  roofs,  which  you  then  saw  filled  with  wives  and  children  and 
countrymen  in  distress  and  terror,  and  looking  with  unutterable  emo 
tions  for  the  i^sue  of  the  combat,  have  presented  you  to-day  with  the 
sight  of  its  whole  happy  population,  come  out  to  welcome  and  greet 
you  with  a  universal  jubilee.  Yonder  proud  ships,  by  a  felicity  of 
position  appropriately  lying  at  the  foot  of  this  mount,  and  seeming 
fondly  to  cling  around  it,  are  not  means  of  annoyance  to  you,  but 
your  country's  own  means  of  distinction  and  defence.  All  is  peace; 
and  God  has  granted  you  this  sight  of  your  country's  happiness,  ere 
you  slumber  in  the  grave  forever.  He  has  allowed  you  to  behold  and 
to  partake  the  reward  of  your  patriotic  toils;  and  he  has  allowed  us, 
your  sons  and  countrymen,  to  meet  you  here,  and  in  the  name  of  the 
present  generation,  in  the  name  of  your  country,  in  the  name  of  lib 
erty,  to  thank  you! 

But,  alas!  you  are  not  all  here!  Time  and  the  sword  have  thinned 
your  ranks.  Prescott,  Putnam,  Stark,  Brooks,  Read,  Pomeroy, 
Bridge!  our  eyes  seek  for  you  in  vain  amidst  this  broken  band.  You 
are  gathered  to  your  fathers,  and  live  only  to  your  country  in  her 
grateful  remembrance,  and  your  own  bright  example.  But  let  us  not 
too  much  grieve  that  you  have  met  the  common  fate  of  men.  You 
lived,  at  least,  long  enough  to  know  that  your  work  had  been  nobly 
and  successfully  accomplished.  You  lived  to  see  your  country's  inde 
pendence  established,  and  to  sheathe  your  swords  from  war.  On  the 
light  of  liberty  you  saw  arise  the  light  of  peace,  like 

"  another  morn, 
Risen  on  mid-noon  ;" — 

and  the  sky,  on  which  you  closed  your  eyes,  was  cloudless. 

But — ah! — him!  the  first  great  martyr  in  this  great  cause!  him!  the 
premature  victim  of  his  own  self-devoting  heart!  him!  the  head 
of  our  civil  councils,  and  the  destined  leader  of  our  military 
bands;  whom  nothing  brought  hither  but  the  unquenchable  fire 
of  his  own  spirit;  him!  cut  off  by  Providence,  in  the  hour  of 
overwhelming  anxiety  and  thick  gloom;  falling  ere  he  saw  the  star  of 
his  country  rise;  pouring  out  his  generous  blood,  like  water,  before 
he  knew  whether  it  would  fertilize  a  land  of  freedom  or  of  bondage1 
how  shall  I  struggle  with  the  emotions  that  stifle  the  utterance  of  thy 
name! — Our  poor  work  may  perish;  but  thine  shall  endure!  This 
monument  may  moulder  away;  the  solid  ground  it  rests  upon  may 
sink  down  to  a  level  with  the  sea;  but  thy  memory  shall  not  fail! 
Wheresoever  among  men  a  heart  shall  be  found,  that  beats  to  the 
transports  of  patriotism  and  liberty,  its  aspirations  shall  be  to  claim 
kindred  with  thy  spirit! 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  213 

But  the  scene  amidst  which  we  stand  does  not  permit  us  to  confine 
our  thoughts  or  our  sympathies  to  those  fearless  spirits,  who  hazarded 
or  lost  their  lives  on  this  consecrated  spot.  We  have  the  happiness 
to  rejoice  here  in  the  presence  of  a  most  worthy  representation  of  the 
survivors  of  the  whole  revolutionary  army. 

Veterans!  you  are  the  remnant  of  many  a  well-fought  field.  You 
bring  with  you  marks  of  honor  from  Trenton  and  Monmouth,  from 
Yorktown,  Camden,  Bennington  and  Saratoga.  Veterans  of  half  a 
century!  when,  in  your  youthful  days,  you  put  everything  at  hazard 
in  your  country's  cause,  good  as  that  cause  was,  and  sanguine  as 
youth  is,  still  your  fondest  hopes  did  not  stretch  onward  to  an  hour 
like  this!  At  a  period  to  which  you  could  not  reasonably  have  ex 
pected  to  arrive;  at  a  moment  of  national  prosperity,  such  as  you 
could  never  have  foreseen,  you  are  now  met,  here,  to  enjoy  the  fellow 
ship  of  old  soldiers,  and  to  receive  the  overflowings  of  a  universal 
gratitude. 

But  your  agitated  countenances  and  your  heaving  breasts  inform 
me,  that  even  this  is  not  an  unmixed  joy.  I  perceive  that  a  tumult  of 
contending  feelings  rushes  upon  you.  The  images  of  the  dead,  as 
well  as  the  persons  of  the  living,  throng  to  your  embraces.  The 
scene  overwhelms  you,  and  I  turn  from  it.  May  the  Father  of  all 
mercies  smile  upon  your  declining  years,  and  bless  them!  And  when 
you  shall  here  have  exchanged  your  embraces;  when  you  shall  once 
more  have  pressed  the  hands  which  have  been  so  often  extended  to 
give  succor  in  adversity,  or  grasped  in  the  exultation  of  victory;  then 
look  abroad  into  this  lovely  land,  which  your  young  valor  defended, 
and  mark  the  happiness  with  which  it  is  filled;  yea,  look  abroad  into 
the  whole  earth,  and  see  what  a  name  you  have  contributed  to  give  to 
your  country,  and  what  a  praise  you  have  added  to  freedom,  and  then 
rejoice  in  the  sympathy  and  gratitude  which  beam  upon  your  last 
days  from  the  improved  condition  of  mankind. 

The  occasion  does  npt  require  of  me  any  particular  account  of  the 
battle  of  the  iyth  of  June,  nor  any  detailed  narrative  of  the  events 
which  immediately  preceded  it.  These  are  familiarly  known  to  all. 
In  the  progress  of  the  great  and  interesting  controversy,  Massachu 
setts  and  the  town  of  Boston  had  become  early  and  marked  objects  of 
the  displeasure  of  the  British  Parliament.  This  had  been  manifested, 
in  the  act  for  altering  the  government  of  the  province,  and  in  that  for 
shutting  up  the  port  of  Boston.  Nothing  sheds  more  honor  on  our 
early  history,  and  nothing  better  shows  how  little  the  feelings  and 
sentiments  of  the  colonies  were  known  or  regarded  in  England,  than 
the  impression  which  these  measures  everywhere  produced  in  America. 
It  had  been  anticipated,  that  while  the  other  colonies  would  be  terri 
fied  by  the  severity  of  the  punishment  inflicted  on  Massachusetts,  the 
other  seaports  would  be  governed  by  a  mere  spirit  of  gain;  and  that, 
as  Boston  was  now  cut  off  from  all  commerce,  the  unexpected  advan 
tage,  which  this  blow  on  her  was  calculated  to  confer  on  other  towns. 


214  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

would  be  greedily  enjoyed.  How  miserably  such  reasoners  deceived 
themselves!  How  little  they  knew  of  the  depth,  and  the  strength, 
and  the  intenseness  of  that  feeling  of  resistance  to  illegal  acts  of 
power,  which  possessed  the  whole  American  people!  Everywhere 
the  unworthy  boon  was  rejected  with  scorn.  The  fortunate  occasion 
was  seized,  everywhere,  to  show  to  the  whole  world,  that  the  colonies 
were  swayed  by  no  local  interest,  no  partial  interest,  no  selfish  inter 
est.  The  temptation  to  profit  by  the  punishment  of  Boston  was 
strongest  to  our  neighbors  of  Salem.  Yet  Salem  was  precisely  the 
place  where  this  miserable  proffer  was  spurned,  in  a  tone  of  the  most 
lofty  self-respect,  and  the  most  indignant  patriotism.  "  We  are 
deeply  affected,"  said  its  inhabitants,  "  with  the  sense  of  our  public 
calamities;  but  the  miseries  that  are  now  rapidly  hastening  on  our 
brethren  in  the  capital  of  the  province,  greatly  excite  our  commisera 
tion.  By  shutting  up  the  port  of  Boston,  some  imagine  that  the 
course  of  trade  might  be  turned  hither  and  to  our  benefit.  But  we 
must  be  dead  to  every  idea  of  justice,  lost  to  all  feelings  of  humanity, 
could  we  indulge  a  thought  to  seize  on  wealth,  and  raise  our  fortunes 
on  the  ruin  of  our  suffering  neighbors."  These  noble  sentiments 
were  not  confined  to  our  immediate  vicinity.  In  that  day  of  general 
affection  and  brotherhood,  the  blow  given  to  Boston  smote  on  every 
patriotic  heart  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other.  Virginia 
and  the  Carolinas,  as  well  as  Connecticut  and  New  Hampshire,  felt 
and  proclaimed  the  cause  to  be  their  own.  The  continental  Congress, 
then  holding  its  first  session  in  Philadelphia,  expressed  its  sympathy 
for  the  suffering  inhabitants  of  Boston;  and  addresses  were  received 
from  all  quarters,  assuring  them  that  the  cause  was  a  common  one, 
and  should  be  met  by  common  efforts  and  common  sacrifices.  The 
Congress  of  Massachusetts  responded  to  these  assurances — and  in  an 
address  to  the  Congress  at  Philadelphia,  bearing  the  official  signature, 
perhaps  among  the  last,  of  the  immortal  Warren,  notwithstanding  the 
severity  of  its  suffering  and  the  magnitude  of  the  dangers  which 
threatened  it,  it  was  declared,  that  this  colo'ny  "  is  ready,  at  all 
times,  to  spend  and  to  be  spent  in  the  cause  of  America." 

But  the  hour  drew  nigh,  which  was  to  put  professions  to  the  proof, 
and  to  determine  whether  the  authors  of  these  mutual  pledges  were 
ready  to  seal  them  in  blood.  The  tidings  of  Lexington  and  Concord 
had  no  sooner  spread,  than  it  was  universally  felt  that  the  time  was  at 
last  come  for  action.  A  spirit  pervaded  all  ranks,  not  transient,  not 
boisterous,  but  deep,  solemn,  determined, 

41  totamqve  infusa  per  art  us 
Mens  agltat  violent,  ct  mag-no  se  corpore  miscet" 

War,  on  their  own  soil  and  at  their  own  doors,  was,  indeed,  a  strange 
work  to  the  yeomanry  of  New  England.  But  their  consciences  were 
convinced  of  its  necessity,  their  country  called  them  to  it,  and  they 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  ,       215 

did  not  withhold  themselves  from  the  perilous  trial.  The  ordinary  oc 
cupations  of  life  were  abandoned.  The  plough  was  stayed  in  the  unfin 
ished  furrow;  wives  gave  up  their  husbands,  and  mothers  gave  up 
their  sons,  to  the  battles  of  a  civil  war.  Death  might  come,  in 
honor,  on  the  field;  it  might  come,  in  disgrace,  on  the  scaffold.  For 
either  and  for  both  they  were  prepared.  The  sentiment  of  Quincy 
was  full  in  their  hearts.  "  Blandishments,"  said  that  distinguished 
son  of  genius  and  patriotism,  "  will  not  fascinate  us,  nor  will  threats 
of  a  halter  intimidate;  for,  under  God,  we  are  determined  that  where 
soever,  whensoever,  or  howsoever  we  shall  be  called  to  make  our  exit, 
we  will  die  free  men." 

The  iyth  of  June  saw  the  four  New  England  colonies  standing  here, 
side  by  side  to  triumph  or  to  fall  together;  and  there  was  with  them, 
from  that  moment  to  the  end  of  the  war,  what,  I  hope,  will  remain 
with  them  forever,  one  cause,  one  country,  one  heart. 

The  battle  of  Bunker  Hill  was  attended  with  the  most  important  ef 
fects,  beyond  its  immediate  result  as  a  military  engagement.  It  cre 
ated,  at  once,  a  state  of  open,  public  war.  There  could  now  be  no 
longer  a  question  of  proceeding  against  individuals  as  guilty  of  treason 
or  rebellion.  That  fearful  crisis  was  past.  The  appeal  now  lay  to  the 
sword — and  the  only  question  was,  whether  the  spirit  and  the  re 
sources  of  the  people  would  hold  out,  till  the  object  should  be  accom 
plished.  Nor  were  its  general  consequences  confined  to  our  own 
country.  The  previous  proceedings  of  the  colonies,  their  appeals, 
resolutions,  and  addresses,  had  made  their  cause  known  to  Europe. 
Without  boasting,  we  may  say  that,  in  no  age  or  country,  has  the 
public  cause  been  maintained  with  more  force  of  argument,  more 
power  of  illustration,  or  more  of  that  persuasion  which  excited  feeling 
and  elevated  principle  can  alone  bestow,  than  the  revolutionary  state- 
papers  exhibit.  These  papers  will  forever  deserve  to  be  studied,  not 
only  for  the  spirit  which  they  breathe,  but  for  the  ability  with  which 
they  were  written. 

To  this  able  vindication  of  their  cause,  the  colonies  had  now  added 
a  practical  and  severe  proof  of  their  own  true  devotion  to  it,  and 
evidence  also  of  the  power  which  they  could  bring  to  its  support. 
All  now  saw,  that,  if  America  fell,  she  would  not  fall  without  a 
struggle.  Men  felt  sympathy  and  regard,  as  well  as  surprise,  when 
they  beheld  these  infant  states,  remote,  unknown,  unaided,  encounter 
the  power  of  England,  and,  in  the  first  considerable  battle,  leave  more 
of  their  enemies  dead  on  the  field,  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
combatants,  than  they  had  recently  known  in  the  wars  of  Europe. 

Information  of  these  events  circulating  through  Europe,  at  length 
reached  the  ears  of  one  who  now  hears  me.  He  has  not  forgotten  the 
emotion  which  the  fame  of  Bunker  Hill  and  the  name  of  Warren, 
excited  in  his  youthful  breast. 

Sir,  we  are  assembled  to  commemorate  the  establishment  of  great 
A.  P.— 8. 


2i6  AMERICAN  FATRIOl^ISM. 

•*.  .. 

public  principles  of  liberty,  and  to  do  honor  to  the  distinguished  dead. 
The  occasion  is  too  severe  for  eulogy  to  the  living.  But,  sir,  your  in 
teresting  relation  to  this  country,  the  peculiar  circumstances  which 
surround  you  and  surround  us,  call  on  me  to  express  the  happiness 
which  we  derive  from  your  presence  and  aid  in  this  solemn .  com 
memoration. 

Fortunate,  fortunate  man  !  with  what  measure  of  devotion  will  you 
not  thank  God  for  the  circumstances  of  your  extraordinary  life  !  You 
are  connected  with  both  hemispheres  and  with  two  generations. 
Heaven  saw  fit  to  ordain,  that  the  electric  spark  of  liberty  should  be 
conducted,  through  you,  from  the  new  world  to  the  old;  and  we,  who 
are  now  here  to  perform  this  duty  of  patriotism,  have  all  of  us  long 
ago  received  it  in  charge  from  our  fathers  to  cherish  your  name  and 
your  virtues.  You  will  account  it  an  instance  of  your  good  fortune, 
sir,  that  you  crossed  the  seas  to  visit  us  at  a  time  which  enables  you 
to  be  present  at  this  solemnity.  You  now  behold  the  field,  the  renown 
of  which  reached  you  in  the  heart  of  France,  and  caused  a  thrill  in 
your  ardent  bosom.  You  see  the  lines  of  the  little  redoubt  thrown  up 
by  the  incredible  diligence  of  Prescott;  defended,  to  the  last  extremity, 
by  his  lion-hearted  valor;  and  within  which  the  corner-stone  of  our 
monument  has  now  taken  its  position.  You  see  where  Warren  fell, 
and  where  Parker,  Gardner,  McCleary,  Moore,  and  other  early 
patriots,  fell  with  him.  Those  who  survived  that  day,  and  whose 
lives  have  been  prolonged  to  the  present  hour,  are  now  around  you. 
Some  of  them  you  have  known  in  the  trying  scenes  of  the  war. 
Behold !  they  now  stretch  forth  their  feeble  arms  to  embrace  you. 
Behold !  they  raise  their  trembling  voices  to  invoke  the  blessing  of 
God  on  you,  and  yours,  forever. 

Sir,  you  have  assisted  us  in  laying  the  foundation  of  this  edifice. 
You  have  heard  us  rehearse,  with  our  feeble  commendation,  the 
names  of  departed  patriots.  Sir,  monuments  and  eulogy  belong  to  the 
dead.  We  give  them,  this  day,  to  Warren  and  his  associates.  On 
other  occasions,  they  have  been  given  to  your  more  immediate  com 
panions  in  arms — to  Washington,  to  Greene,  to  Gates,  Sullivan,  and 
Lincoln.  Sir,  we  have  become  reluctant  to  grant  these,  our  highest 
and  last  honors,  further.  We  would  gladly  hold  them  yet  back  from 
the  little  remnant  of  that  immortal  band.  Sertis  in  ccelum  redeas. 
Illustrious  as  are  your  merits,  yet  far,  oh,  very  far  distant  be  the  day, 
when  any  inscription  shall  bear  your  name,  or  any  tongue  pronounce 
its  eulogy  ! 

The  leading  reflection  to  which  this  occasion  seems  to  invite  us, 
respects  the  great  changes  which  have  happened  in  the  fifty  years  since 
the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill  was  fought.  And  it  peculiarly  marks  the 
character  of  the  present  age,  that,  in  looking  at  these  changes,  and  in 
estimating  their  effect  on  our  condition,  we  are  obliged  to  consider,  not 
what  has  been  done  in  our  own  country  only,  but  in  others  also.  In 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  217 

these  interesting  times,  while  nations  are  making  separate  and  in 
dividual  advances  in  improvement,  they  make,  too,  a  common  pro 
gress;  like  vessels  on  a  common  tide,  propelled  by  the  gales  at  differ 
ent  rates,  according  to  their  several  structure  and  mangement,  but  all 
moved  forward  by  one  mighty  current  beneath,  strong  enough  to  bear 
onward  whatever  does  not  sink  beneath  it. 

A  chief  distinction  of  the  present  day  is  a  community  of  opinions 
and  knowledge  amongst  men,  in  different  nations,  existing  in  a  degree 
heretofore  unknown.  Knowledge  has,  in  our  time,  triumphed,  and  is 
triumphing,  over  distance,  over  difference  of  languages  over  diver 
sity  of  habits,  over  prejudice,  and  over  bigotry.  The  civilized  and 
Christian  world  is  fast  learning  the  great  lesson,  that  difference  of 
nation  does  not  imply  necessary  hostility,  and  that  all  contact  need 
not  be  war.  The  whole  world  is  becoming  a  common  field  for  intel 
lect  to  act  in.  Energy  of  mind,  genius,  power,  wheresoever  it  exists, 
may  speak  out  in  any  tongue,  and  the  world  will  hear  it.  A  great 
chord  of  sentiment  and  feeling  runs  through  two  continents,  and 
vibrates  over  both.  Every  breeze  wafts  intelligence  from  country  to 
country;  every  wave  rolls  it;  all  give  it  forth,  and  all  in  turn  receive 
it.  There  is  a  vast  commerce  of  ideas.  There  are  marts  and  ex 
changes  for  intellectual  discoveries,  and  a  wonderful  fellowship  of 
those  individual  intelligences  which  make  up  the  mind  and  opinion  of 
the  age.  Mind  is  the  great  lever  of  all  things;  human  thought  is  the 
process  by  which  human  ends  are  ultimately  answered;  and  the 
diffusion  of  knowledge,  so  astonishing  in  the  last  half  century,  has 
rendered  innumerable  minds,  variously  gifted  by  nature,  competent  to 
be  competitors,  or  fellow-workers,  on  the  theatre  of  intellectual  opera 
tion. 

From  these  causes,  important  improvements  have  taken  place  in  the 
personal  condition  of  individuals.  Generally  speaking,  mankind  are 
not  only  better  fed,  and  better  clothed,  but  they  are  able  also  to  enjoy 
more  leisure;  they  possess  more  refinement  and  more  self-respect.  A 
superior  tone  of  education,  manners,  and  habits,  prevails.  This  re 
mark,  most  true  in  its  application  to  our  own  country,  is  also  partlv 
true  when  applied  elsewhere.  It  is  proved  by  the  vastly-augmented 
consumption  of  those  articles  of  manufacture  and  of  commerce  which 
contribute  to  the  comforts  and  the  decencies  of  life;  an  augmentation 
which  has  far  outrun  the  progress  of  population.  And  while  the  un 
exampled  and  almost  incredible  use  of  machinery  would  seem  to  sup 
ply  the  place  of  labor,  labor  still  finds  finds  its  occupation  and  its 
reward;  so  wisely  has  Providence  adjusted  men's  wants *and  desires 
to  their  condition  and  their  capacity. 

Any  adequate  survey,  however,  of  the  progress  made  in  the  last 
half  century  in  the  polite  and  the  mechanic  arts,  in  machinery  and 
manufactures,  in  commerce  and  agriculture,  in  letters  and  in  science, 
would  require  volumes.  I  must  abstain  wholly  from  these  subjects, 


2i  8  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

and  turn,  for  a  moment,  to  the  contemplation  of  what  has  been  done 
on  the  great  question  of  politics  and  government.  This  is  the  master 
topic  of  the  age;  and  during  the  whole  fifty  years  it  has  intensely  oc 
cupied  the  thoughts  of  men.  The  nature  of  civil  government,  its  ends 
and  uses,  have  been  canvassed  and  investigated;  ancient  opinions 
attacked  and  defended;  new  ideas  recommended  and  resisted,  by  what 
ever  power  the  mind  of  man  could  bring  to  the  controversy.  From 
the  closet  and  the  public  halls,  the  debate  has  been  transferred  to  the 
field;  and  the  world  has  been  shaken  by  wars  of  unexampled  magni 
tude,  and  the  greatest  variety  of  fortune.  A  day  of  peace  has  at 
length  succeeded:  and  now  that  the  strife  has  subsided,  and  the  smoke 
cleared  away,  we  may  begin  to  see  what  has  actually  been  done,  per 
manently  changing  the  state  and  condition  of  human  society.  And 
without  dwelling  on  particular  circumstances,  it  is  most  apparent  that, 
from  the  before-mentioned  causes  of  augmented  knowledge  and  im 
proved  individual  condition,  a  real,  substantial,  and  important  change 
has  taken  place,  and  is  taking  place,  greatly  beneficial,  on  the  whole, 
to  human  liberty  and  human  happiness. 

The  great  wheel  of  political  revolution  began  to  move  -in  America. 
Here  its  rotation  was  guarded,  regular  and  safe.  Transferred  to 
the  other  continent,  from  unfortunate,  but  natural,  causes,  it  re 
ceived  an  irregular  and  violent  impulse;  it  whirled  along  with  a  fearful 
celerity,  till  at  length,  like  the  chariot-wheels  in  the  races  of  antiquity, 
it  took  fire  from  the  rapidity  of  its  own  motion,  and  blazed  onward, 
spreading  conflagration  and  terror  around. 

We  learn  from  the  result  of  this  experiment,  how  fortunate  was  our 
own  condition,  and  how  admirably  the  character  of  our  people  was 
calculated  for  making  the  great  example  of  popular  governments. 
The  possession  of  power  did  not  turn  the  heads  of  the  American  peo 
ple,  for  they  had  long  been  in  the  habit  of  exercising  a  great  portion  of 
self-control.  Although  the  paramount  authority  of  the  parent  state 
existed  over  them,  yet  a  large  field  of  legislation  had  always  been 
open  to  our  colonial  assemblies.  They  were  accustomed  to  repre 
sentative  bodies  and  the  forms  of  free  government;  they  understood 
the  doctrine  of  the  division  of  power  among  different  branches,  and 
the  necessity  of  checks  on  each.  The  character  of  our  countrymen, 
moreover,  was  sober,  moral,  and  religious;  and  there  was  little  in  the 
change  to  shock  their  feelings  of  justice  and  humanity,  or  even  to  dis 
turb  an  honest  prejudice.  We  have  no  domestic  throne  to  overturn, 
no  privileged  orders  to  cast  down,  no  violent  changes  of  property  to 
encounter.  In  the  American  Revolution,  no  man  sought  or  wished 
for  more  than  to  defend  and  enjoy  his  own.  None  hoped  for  plunder 
or  for  spoil.  Rapacity  was  unknown  to  it;  the  axe  was  not  among  the 
instruments  of  its  accomplishment;  and  we  all  know  that  it  could  not 
have  lived  a  single  day  under  any  well-founded  imputation  of  possess 
ing  a  tendency  adverse  to  the  Christian  religion. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  219 

It  need  not  surprise  us,  that,  under  circumstances  less  suspicious, 
political  revolutions  elsewhere,  even  when  well  intended,  have  ter 
minated  differently.  It  is,  indeed,  a  great  achievement — it  is  the 
master-work  of  the  world — to  establish  governments  entirely  popular, 
on  lasting  foundations;  nor  is  it  easy,  indeed,  to  introduce  the  popular 
principle  at  all  into  governments  to  which  it  has  been  altogether  a 
stranger.  It  cannot  be  doubted,  however,  that  Europe  has  come  out  of 
the  contest  in  which  she  has  been  so  long  engaged,  with  greatly 
superior  knowledge,  and  in  many  respects,  a  highly  improved  condi 
tion.  Whatever  benefit  has  been  acquired,  is  likely  to  be  retained,  for 
it  consists  mainly  in  the  acquisition  of  more  enlightened  ideas.  And 
although  kingdoms  and  provinces  may  be  wrested  from  the  hands  that 
hold  them,  in  the  same  manner  they  were  obtained;  although  ordinary 
and  vulgar  power  may,  in  human  affairs,  be  lost  as  it  has  been  won; 
yet  it  is  the  glorious  prerogative  of  the  empire  of  knowledge,  that  what 
it  gains  it  never  loses.  On  the  contrary,  it  increases  by  the  multiple 
of  its  own  power;  all  its  ends  become  means;  all  its  attainmements, 
helps  to  new  conquests.  Its  whole  abundant  harvest  is  but  so  much 
seed  wheat,  and  nothing  has  ascertained,  and  nothing  can  ascertain, 
the  amount  of  ultimate  product. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  rapidly-increasing  knowledge,  the  peo 
ple  have  begun,  in  all  forms  of  government,  to  think  and  to  reason 
on  affairs  of  state.  Regarding  government  as  an  institution  for  the 
public  good,  they  demand  a  knowledge  of  its  operations,  and  a  parti 
cipation  in  its  exercise.  A  call  for  the  representative  system,  wher 
ever  it  is  not  enjoyed,  and  where  there  is  already  intelligence  enough 
to  estimate  its  value,  is  perseveringly  made.  Where  men  may  speak 
out,  they  demand  it;  where  the  bayonet  is  at  their  throats,  they  pray 
for  ir. 

When  Louis  XIV.  said,  "  I  am  the  state,"  he  expressed  the  essence 
of  the  doctrine  of  unlimited  power.  By  the  rules  of  that  system,  the 
people  are  disconnected  from  the  state;  they  are  its  subjects, — it  is 
their  lord.  These  ideas,  founded  in  the  love  of  power,  and  long  sup 
ported  by  the  excess  and  the  abuse  of  it,  are  yielding,  in  our  age,  to 
other  opinions  ;  and  the  civilized  world  seems  at  last  to  be  proceeding 
to  the  conviction  of  that  fundamental  and  manifest  truth,  that  the 
powers  of  government  are  but  a  trust,  and  that  they  cannot  be  law 
fully  exercised  but  for  the  good  of  the  community.  As  knowledge  is 
more  and  more  extended,  this  conviction  becomes  more  and  more 
general.  Knowledge,  in  truth,  is  the  great  sun  in  the  firmament. 
Life  and  power  are  scattered  with  all  its  beams.  The  prayer  of  the 
Grecian  combatant,  when  enveloped  in  unnatural  clouds  and  dark 
ness,  is  the  appropriate  political  supplication  for  the  people  of  every 
countiy  not  yet  blessed  with  free  institutions  : 

"  Dispel  this  cloud  ;  the  light  of  heaven  restore  ; 
Give  me  to  see — and  Ajax  asks  no  more." 


220  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

We  may  hope  that  the  growing  influence  of  enlightened  sentiments 
will  promote  the  permanent  peace  of  the  world.  Wars,  to  maintain 
family  alliances,  to  uphold  or  to  cast  down  dynasties,  to  _  regulate  suc 
cessions  to  thrones,  which  have  occupied  so  much  room  in  the  history 
of  modern  times,  if  not  less  likely  to  happen  at  all,  will  be  less  likely 
to  become  general,  and  involve  many  nations,  as  the  great  principle 
shall  be  more  and  more  established,  that  the  interest  of  the  world  is 
peace,  and  its  first  great  statute,  that  every  nation  possesses  the  power 
of  establishing  a  government  for  itself.  But  public  opinion  has  at 
tained  also  an  influence  over  governments  which  do  not  admit  the 
popular  principle  into  their  organization.  A  necessary  respect  for  the 
judgment  of  the  world  operates,  in  some  measure,  as  a  control  over 
the  most  unlimited  forms  of  authority.  It  is  owing,  perhaps,  to  this 
truth,  that  the  interesting  struggle  of  the  Greeks  has  been  suffered  to 
go  on  so  long,  without  a  direct  interference,  either  to  wrest  that  coun 
try  from  its  present  masters,  and  add  it  to  other  powers,  or  to  execute 
the  system  of  pacification  by  force;  and,  with  united  strength,  lay  the 
neck 'of  Christian  and  civilized  Greece  at  the  foot  of  the  barbarian 
Turk.  Let  us  thank  God  that  we  live  in  an  age  when  something  has 
influence  besides  the  bayonet,  and  when  the  sternest  authority  does 
not  venture  to  encounter  the  scorching  power  of  public  reproach. 
Any  attempt  of  the  kind  I  have  mentioned,  should  be  met  by  one  uni 
versal  burst  of  indignation;  the  air  of  the  civilized  world  ought  to  be 
made  too  warm  to  be  comfortably  breathed  by  any  who  would  hazard 
it. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  touching  reflection,  that  while,  in  the  fulness  of  our 
country's  happiness,  we  rear  this  monument  to  her  honor,  we  look  for 
instruction  in  our  undertaking  to  a  country  which  is  now  in  fearful 
contest,  not  for  works  of  art  or  memorials  of  glory,  but  for  her  own 
existence.  Let  her  be  assured  that  she  is  not  forgotten  in  the  world  ; 
that  her  efforts  are  applauded,  and  that  constant  prayers  ascend  for 
her  success.  And  let  us  cherish  a  confident  hope  for  her  final  triumph. 
If  the  true  spark  of  religious  and  civil  liberty  be  kindled,  it  will  burn. 
Human  agency  cannot  extinguish  it.  Like  the  earth's  central  fire,  it 
may  be  smothered  for  a  time  ;  the  ocean  may  overwhelm  it  :  moun 
tains  may  press  it  down  ;  but  its  inherent  and  unconquerable  force 
will  heave  both  the  ocean  and  the  land,  and  at  some  time  or  another, 
in  some  place  or  another,  the  volcano  will  break  out  and  flame  up  to 
heaven. 

Among  the  great  events  of  the  half  century,  we  must  reckon,  cer 
tainly,  the  revolution  of  South  America ;  and  we  are  not  likely  to 
overrate  the  importance  of  that  revolution,  either  to  the  people  of  the 
country  itself,  or  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  late  Spanish  colonies, 
now  independent  states,  under  circumstances  less  favorable,  doubt 
less,  than  attended  our  own  revolution,  have  yet  successfully  com 
menced  their  national  existence.  They  have  accomplished  the  great 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  221 

object  of  establishing  their  independence  ;  they  are  known  and  ac 
knowledged  in  the  world  ;  and  although,  in  regard  to  their  systems  of 
government,  their  sentiments  on  religious  toleration,  and  their  provi 
sions  for  public  instruction,  they  may  have  yet  much  to  learn,  it  must 
be  admitted  that  they  have  risen  to  the  condition  of  settled  and  estab 
lished  states  more  rapidly  than  could  have  been  reasonably  antici 
pated.  They  already  furnish  an  exhilarating  example  of  the  differ 
ence  between  free  governments  and  despotic  misrule.  Their 
commerce,  at  this  moment,  creates  a  new  activity  in  all  the  great 
marts  of  the  world.  They  show  themselves  able,  by  an  exchange  of 
commodities,  to  bear  a  useful  part  in  the  intercourse  of  nations.  A 
new  spirit  of  enterprise  and  industry  begins  to  prevail  ;  all  the  great 
interests  of  society  receive  a  salutary  impulse  ;  and  the  progress  of 
information  not  only  testifies  to  an  improved  condition,  but  consti 
tutes,  itself,  the  highest  and  most  essential  improvement. 

When  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill  was  fought,  the  existence  of  South 
America  was  scarcely  felt  in  the  civilized  world.  The  thirteen  little 
colonies  of  North  America  habitually  called  themselves  the  "Conti 
nent."  Borne  down  by  colonial  subjugation,  monopoly,  and  bigotry, 
these  vast  regions  of  the  south  were  hardly  visible  above  the  horizon. 
But,  in  our  day,  there  hath  been,  as  it  were,  a  new  creation.  The 
southern  hemisphere  emerges  from  the  sea.  Its  lofty  mountains  be 
gin  to  lift  themselves  into  the  light  of  heaven  ;  its  broad  and  fertile 
plains  stretch  out  in  beauty  to  the  eye  of  civilized  man,  and,  at  the 
mighty  being  of  the  voice  of  political  liberty,  the  waters  of  darkness 
retire. 

And,  now,  let  us  indulge  an  honest  exultation  in  the  conviction  of 
the  benefit  which  the  example  of  our  country  has  produced,  and  is 
likely  to  produce,  on  human  freedom  and  human  happiness.  And  let 
us  endeavor  to  comprehend,  in  all  its  magnitude,  and  to  feel,  in  all  its 
importance,  the  part  assigned  to  us  in  the  great  drama  of  human  af 
fairs.  We  are  placed  at  the  head  of  the  system  of  representative  and 
popular  governments.  Thus  far,  our  example  shows  that  such  gov 
ernments  are  compatible,  not  only  with  respectability  and  power,  but 
with  repose,  with  peace,  with  security  of  personal  rights,  with  good 
laws,  and  a  just  administration. 

We  are  not  propagandists.  Wherever  other  systems  are  preferred, 
either  as  being  thought  better  in  themselves,  or  as  better  suited  to  ex 
isting  condition,  we  leave  the  preference  to  be  enjoyed.  Our  history 
hitherto  proves,  however,  that  the  popular  form  is  practicable,  and 
that,  with  wisdom  and  knowledge,  men  may  govern  themselves;  and 
the  duty  incumbent  on  us  is,  to  preserve  the  consistency  of  this  cheer 
ing  example,  and  take  care  that  nothing  may  weaken  its  authority 
with  the  world.  If,  in  our  case,  the  representative  system  ultimately 
fail,  popular  governments  must  be  pronounced  impossible.  No  com 
bination  of  circumstances  more  favorable  to  the  experiment  can  ever 


222  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

be  expected  to  occur.  The  last  hopes  of  mankind,  therefore,  rest 
with  us;  and  if  it  should  be  proclaimed  that  our  example  had  become 
an  argument  against  the  experiment,  the  knell  of  popular  liberty  would 
be  sounded  throughout  the  earth. 

These  are  excitements  to  duty;  but  they  are  not  suggestions  of 
doubt.  Our  history  and  our  condition,  all  that  is  gone  before  us,  and 
all  that  surrounds  us;  authorize  the  belief,  that  popular  governments, 
though  subject  to  occasional  variations,  perhaps  not  always  for  the 
better,  in  form,  may  yet,  in  their  general  character,  be  as  durable  and 
permanent  as  other  systems.  We  know,  indeed,  that,  in  our  coun 
try,  any  other  is  impossible.  The  principle  of  free  governments  ad 
heres  to  the  American  soil.  It  is  bedded  in  it — immovable  as  its 
mountains. 

And  let  the  sacred  obligations  which  have  devolved  on  this  genera 
tion,  and  on  us,  sink  deep  into  our  hearts.  Those  are  daily  dropping 
from  among  us,  who  established  our  liberty  and  our  government.  The 
great  trust  now  descends  to  new  hands.  Let  us  apply  ourselves  to 
that  which  is  presented  to  us,  as  our  appropriate  object.  We  can  win 
no  laurels  in  a  war  for  independence.  Earlier  and  worthier  hands 
have  gathered  them  all.  Nor  are  there  places  for  us  by  the  side  of 
Solon,  and  Alfred,  and  other  founders  of  states.  Our  fathers  have 
filled  them.  But  there  remains  to  us  a  great  duty  of  defence  and  pre 
servation;  and  there  is  opened  to  us,  also,  a  noble  pursuit,  to  which 
the  spirit  of  the  times  strongly  invites  us.  Our  proper  business  is 
improvement.  Let  our  age  be  the  age  of  improvement.  In  a  day  of 
peace,  let  us  advance  the  arts  of  peace  and  the  works  of  peace.  Let 
us  develop  the  resources  of  our  land,  call  forth  its  powers,  build  up 
its  institutions,  promote  all  its  great  interests,  and  see  whether  we 
also,  in  our  day  and  generation,  may  not  perform  something  worthy 
to  be  remembered.  Let  us  cultivate  a  true  spirit  of  union  and  har 
mony.  In  pursuing  the  great  objects  which  our  condition  points  out 
to  us,  let  us  act  under  a  settled  conviction,  and  an  habitual  feeling,  that 
these  twenty-four  states  are  one  country.  Let  our  conceptions  be  en 
larged  to  the  circle  of  our  duties.  Let  us  extend  our  ideas  over  the 
whole  of  the  vast  field  in  which  we  are  called  to  act.  Let  our  objec' 
be,  our  country,  our  whole  country,  and  nothing  but  our  country. 
And,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  may  that  country  itself  become  a  vabt 
and  splendid  monument,  not  of  oppression  and  terror,  but  of  wisdom, 
of  peace,  and  of  liberty,  upon  which  the  world  may  gaze,  with  admi 
ration,  forever. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  223 


REPLY  TO  HAYNE. 

DANIEL  WEBSTER. 
The  Senate,  January  26,  1830. 

Mr.  Webster  addressed  the  Senate  as  follows  : — 

Mr.  PRESIDENT  :  When  the  mariner  has  been  tossed,  for  many  days, 
in  thick  weather,  and  on  an  unknown  sea,  he  naturally  avails  himself 
of  the  first  pause  in  the  storm,  the  earliest  glance  of  the  sun,  to  take 
his  latitude,  and  ascertain  how  far  the  elements  have  driven  him  from 
his  true  course.  Let  us  imitate  this  prudence,  and  before  we  float 
farther,  refer  to  the  point  from  which  we  departed,  that  we  may  at 
least  be  able  to  conjecture  where  we  now  are.  I  ask  for  the  reading 
of  the  resolution. 

[The  secretary  read  the  resolution,  as  follows  : — 

"Resolved,  That  the  committee  on  public  lands  be  instructed  to 
inquire  and  report  the  quantity  of  the  public  lands  remaining  unsold 
within  each  state  and  territory,  and  whether  it  be  expedient  to  limit, 
for  a  certain  period,  the  sales  of  the  public  lands  to  such  lands  only  as 
have  heretofore  been  offered  for  sale,  and  are  now  subject  to  entry  at 
the  minimum  price.  And,  also,  whether  the  office  of  surveyor  gene 
ral,  and  some  of  the  land  offices,  may  not  be  abolished  without  detri 
ment  to  the  public  interest  ;  or  whether  it  be  expedient  to  adopt 
measures  to  hasten  the  sales,  and  extend  more  rapidly  the  surveys  of 
the  public  lands."] 

We  have  thus  heard,  sir,  what  the  resolution  is,  which  is  actually 
before  us  for  consideration  ;  and  it  will  readily  occur  to  every  one 
that  it  is  almost  the  only  subject  about  which  something  has  not 
been  said  in  the  speech,  running  through  two  days,  by  which  the 
Senate  has  been  now  entertained  by  the  gentleman  from  South  Caro 
lina.  Every  topic  in  the  wide  range  of  our  public  affairs,  whether 
past  or  present, — everything,  general  or  local,  whether  belong 
ing  to  national  politics  or  party  politics, — seems  to  have  attracted 
more  or  less  of  the  honorable  member's  attention,  save  only  the  reso 
lution  before  us.  He  has  spoken  of  everything  but  the  public  lands. 
They  have  escaped  his  notice.  To  that  subject,  in  all  his  excursions, 
he  has  not  paid  even  the  cold  respect  of  a  passing  glance. 

When  this  debate,  sir,  was  to  be  resumed,  on  Thursday  morning,  it 
so  happened  that  it  would  have  been  convenient  for  me  to  be  else 
where.  The  honorable  member,  however,  did  not  incline  to  put  off 
the  discussion  to  another  day.  He  had  a  shot,  he  said,  to  return,  and 
he  wished  to  discharge  it.  That  shot,  sir,  which  it  was  kind  thus  to 
inform  us  was  coming,  that  we  might  stand  out  of  the  way,  or 
prepare  ourselves  to  fall  before  it,  and  die  with  decency,  has  now 


224  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

been  received.  Under  all  advantages,  and  with  expectation  awakened 
by  the  tone  which  preceded  it,  it  has  been  discharged,  and  has 
spent  its  force.  It  may  become  me  to  say  no  more  of  its  effect  than 
that,  if  nobody  is  found,  after  all,  either  killed  or  wounded  by  it,  it  is 
not  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  human  affairs  that  the  vigor  and 
success  of  the  war  have  not  quite  come  up  to  the  lofty  and  sounding 
phrase  of  the  manifesto. 

The  gentleman,  sir,  in  declining  to  postpone  the  debate,  told  the 
Senate  with  the  emphasis  of  his  hand  upon  his  heart,  that  there  was 
something  rankling  here,  which  he  wished  to  relieve.  [Mr.  Hayne 
rose  and  disclaimed  having  used  the  word  rankling.]  It  would  not, 
Mr.  President,  be  safe  for  the  honorable  member  to  appeal  to  those 
around  him,  upon  the  question  whether  he  did,  in  fact,  make  use  of 
that  word.  But  he  may  have  been  unconscious  of  it.  At  any  rate,  it 
is  enough  that  he  disclaims  it.  But  still,  with  or  without  the  use  of 
that  particular  word,  he  had  yet  something  here,  he  said  of  which  he 
wished  to  rid  himself  by  an  immediate  reply.  In  this  respect,  sir,  I 
have  a  great  advantage  over  the  honorable  gentleman.  There  is 
nothing  here,  sir,  which  gives  me  the  slightest  uneasiness  ;  neither 
fear,  nor  anger,  nor  that  which  is  sometimes  more  troublesome  than 
either,  the  consciousness  of  having  been  in  the  wrong.  There  is 
nothing  either  originating  here,  or  now  received  here  by  the  gentle 
man's  shot.  Nothing  original,  for  I  had  not  the  slightest  feeling  of 
disrespect  or  unkindness  towards  the  honorable  member.  Some 
passages,  it  is  true,  had  occurred,  since  our  acquaintance  in  this  body, 
which  I  could  have  wished  might  have  been  otherwise  ;  but  I  had 
used  philosophy,  and  forgotten  them.  When  the  honorable  member 
rose,  in  his  first  speech,  I  paid  him  the  respect  of  attentive  listening; 
and  when  he  sat  down,  though  surprised,  and  I  must  say  even  aston 
ished,  at  some  of  his  opinions,  nothing  was  farther  from  my  intention 
than  to  commence  any  personal  warfare  ;  and  through  the  whole  of 
the  few  remarks  I  made  in  answer,  I  avoided,  studiously  and  care 
fully,  everything  which  I  thought  possible  to  be  construed  into  dis 
respect.  And,  sir,  while  there  is  thus  nothing  originating  here,  which 
I  wished  at  any  time,  or  now  wish,  to  discharge,  I  must  repeat,  also, 
that  nothing  has  been  received  here,  which  rankles,  or  in  any  way 
gives  me  annoyance.  I  will  not  accuse  the  honorable  member  of 
violating  the  rules  of  civilized  war — I  will  not  say  that  he  poisoned 
his  arrows.  But  whether  his  shafts  were,  or  were  not,  dipped  in  that 
which  would  have  caused  rankling  if  they  had  reached,  there  was  not, 
as  it  happended,  quite  strength  enough  in  the  bow  to  bring  them  to 
their  mark.  If  he  wishes  now  to  find  those  shafts,  he  must  look  for 
them  elsewhere  ;  they  will  not  be  found  fixed  and  quivering  in  the 
object  at  which  they  were  aimed. 

The  honorable  member  complained  that  I  had  slept  on  his  speech, 
I  must  have  slept  on  it,  or  not  slept  at  all.  The  moment  the  honor- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  225 

able  member  sat  down,  his  friend  from  Missouri  rose,  and,  with 
much  honeyed  commendation  of  the  speech,  suggested  that  the 
impressions  which  it  had  produced  were  too  charming  and  delightful 
to  be  disturbed  by  other  sentiments  or  other  sounds,  and  proposed 
that  the  Senate  should  adjourn.  Would  it  have  been  quite  amiable  in 
me,  sir,  to  interrupt  this  excellent  good-feeling?  Must  I  not  have 
been  absolutely  malicious,  if  I  could  have  thrust  myself  forward  to 
destroy  sensations  thus  pleasing  ?  Was  it  not  much  better  and  kinder, 
both  to  sleep  upon  them  myself,  and  tojallow  others,  also,  the  pleasure 
of  sleeping  upon  them  ?  But  if  it  be  meant,  by  sleeping  upon  his 
speech,  that  I  took  time  to  prepare  a  reply  to  it,  it  is  quite  a  mistake  : 
owing  to  other  engagements,  I  could  not  employ  even  the  interval 
between  the  adjournment  of  the  Senate  and  its  meeting  the  next 
morning  in  attention  to  the  subject  of  this  debate.  Nevertheless,  sir, 
the  mere  matter  of  fact  is  undoubtedly  true — I  did  sleep  on  the  gentle 
man's  speech,  and  slept  soundly.  And  I  slept  equally  well  on  his 
speech  of  yesterday,  to  which  I  am  now  replying.  It  is  quite  pos 
sible  that,  in  this  respect  also,  I  possess  some  advantage  over  the 
honorable  member,  attributable,  doubtless,  to  a  cooler  temperament 
on  my  part ;  for  in  truth  I  slept  upon  his  speeches  remarkably  well. 
But  the  gentleman  inquires  why  he  was  made  the  object  of  such  a 
reply.  Why  was  he  singled  out  ?  If  an  attack  had  been  made  on  the 
east,  he,  he  assures  us,  did  not  begin  it — it  was  the  gentleman  from 
Missouri.  Sir,  I  answered  the  gentleman's  speech  because  I  happened 
to  hear  it  ;  and  because,  also,  I  chose  to  give  an  answer  to  that 
speech,  which,  if  unanswered,  I  thought  most  likely  to  produce 
injurious  impressions.  I  did  not  stop  to  inquire  who  was  the  original 
drawer  of  the  bill.  I  found  a  reponsible  indorser  before  me,  and  it 
was  my  purpose  to  hold  him  liable,  and  to  bring  him  to  his  just 
responsibility  without  delay.  But,  sir,  this  interrogatory  of  the  hon 
orable  member  was  only  introductory  to  another.  He  proceeded  to 
ask  me  whether  I  had  turned  upon  him  in  this  debate  from 
consciousness  that  I  should  find  an  overmatch  if  I  ventured  on  a  con 
test  with  his  friend  from  Missouri.  If,  sir,  the  honorable  member,  ex 
gratia  modestia,  had  chosen  thus  to  defer  to  his  friend,  and  to  pay  him 
a  compliment,  without  intentional  disparagement  to  others,  it  would 
have  been  quite  according  to  the  friendly  courtesies  of  debate,  and 
not  at  all  ungrateful  to  my  own  feelings.  I  am  not  one  of  those,  sir, 
who  esteem  any  tribute  of  regard,  whether  light  and  occasional,  or 
more  serious  and  deliberate,  which  may  be  bestowed  on  others  as  so 
much  unjustly  withholden  from  themselves.  But  the  tone  and  man 
ner  of  the  gentleman's  question  forbid  me  thus  to  interpret  it.  I  am 
not  at  liberty  to  consider  it  as  nothing  more  than  a  civility  to  his 
•friend.  It  had  an  air  of  taunt  and  disparagement,  a  little  of  the  lofti 
ness  of  asserted  superiority,  which  does  not  allow  me  to  pass  it  over 
without  notice.  It  was  put  as  a  question  for  me  to  answer,  and  so 


226  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

put  as  if  it  were  difficult  for  me  to  answer,  whether  I  deemed  the 
member  from  Missouri  an  overmatch  for  myself  in  debate  here. 
It  seems  to  me,  sir,  that  is  extraordinary  language,  and  an  extraordi 
nary  tone  for  the  discussions  of  this  body. 

Matches  and  overmatches  !  Those  terms  are  more  applicable  else 
where  than  here,  and  fitter  for  other  assemblies  than  this.  Sir,  the  gen 
tleman  seems  to  forget  where  and  what  we  are.  This  is  a  senate;  a 
senate  of  equals;  of  men  of  individual  honor  and  personal  character, 
and  of  absolute  independence.  We  know  no  masters;  we  acknowledge 
no  dictators.  This  is  a  hall  for  mutual  consultation  and  discussion,  not 
an  arena  for  the  exhibition  of  champions.  I  offer  myself,  sir,  as  a  match 
for  no  man;  I  throw  the  challenge  of  debate  at  no  man's  feet.  But, 
then,  sir,  since  the  honorable  member  has  put  the  question  in  a  man 
ner  that  calls  for  an  answer,  I  will  give  him  an  answer;  and  I  tell  him 
that,  holding  myself  to  be  the  humblest  of  the  members  here,  I  yet  know 
nothing  in  the  arm  of  his  friend  from  Missouri,  either  alone  or  when 
aided  by  the  arm  of  his  friend  from  South  Carolina,  that  need  deter 
even  me  from  espousing  whatever  opinions  I  may  choose  to  espouse, 
from  debating  whenever  I  may  choose  to  debate,  or  from  speaking 
whatever  I  may  see  fit  to  say  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate.  Sir,  when 
uttered  as  matter  of  commendation  or  compliment,  I  should  dissent 
from  nothing  which  the  honorable  member  might  say  of  his  friend. 
Still  less  do  I  put  forth  any  pretensions  of  my  own.  But  when  put  to 
me  as  matter  of  taunt,  I  throw  it  back,  and  say  to  the  gentleman  that 
he  could  possibly  say  nothing  less  likely  than  such  a  comparison  to 
wound  my  pride  of  personal  character.  The  anger  of  its  tone  rescued 
the  remark  from  intentional  irony,  which,  otherwise,  probably,  would 
have  been  its  general  acceptation.  But,  sir,  if  it  be  imagined  that  by 
this  mutual  quotation  and  commendation;  if  it  be  supposed  that,  by 
casting  the  characters  of  the  drama,  assigning  to  each  his  part, — 
to  one  the  attack,  to  another  the  cry  of  onset, — or  if  it  be  thought  that 
by  a  loud  and  empty  vaunt  of  anticipated  victory  any  laurels  are  to  be 
won  here;  if  it  be  imagined,  especially,  that  any  or  all  these  things  will 
shake  any  purpose  of  mine,  I  can  tell  the  honorable  member,  once  for 
all,  that  he  is  greatly  mistaken,  and  that  he  is  dealing  with  one  of 
whose  temper  and  character  he  has  yet  much  to  learn.  Sir,  I  shall  not 
allow  myself,  on  this  occasion, — I  hope  on  no  occasion, — to  be  be 
trayed  into  any  loss  of  temper;  but  if  provoked,  as  I  trust  I  never 
shall  allow  myself  to  be,  into  crimination  and  recrimination,  the  hon 
orable  member  may,  perhaps,  find  that  in  that  contest  there  will  be 
blows  to  take  as  well  as  blows  to  give;  that  others  can  state  compari 
sons  as  significant,  at  least,  as  his  own;  and  that  his  impunity  may, 
perhaps,  demand  of  him  whatever  powers  of  taunt  and  sarcasm  he  may 
possess.  I  commend  him  to  a  prudent  husbandry  of  his  resources. 

But,  sir,  the  coalition!  The  coalition!  Ay,  "the  murdered  coali 
tion!"  The  gentleman  asks  if  I  were  led  or  frighted  into  this  debate 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  227 

by  the  spectre  of  the  coalition. — "  Was  it  the  ghost  of  the  murdered 
coalition,"  he  exclaims,  "which  haunted  the  member  from  Massachu 
setts,  and  which,  like  the  ghost  of  Banquo,  would  never  down  ?" 
"The  murdered  coalition!"  Sir,  this  charge  of  a  coalition,  in  refer 
ence  to  the  late  administration,  is  not  original  with  the  honorable 
member.  It  did  not  spring  up  in  the  Senate.  Whether  as  a  fact,  as 
an  argument,  or  as  an  embellishment,  it  is  all  borrowed.  He  adopts  it, 
indeed,  from  a  very  low  origin,  and  a  still  lower  present  condition.  It 
is  one  of  the  thousand  calumnies  with  which  the  press  teemed  during 
an  excited  political  canvass.  It  was  a  charge  of  which  there  was  not 
only  no  proof  or  probability,  but  which  was,  in  itself,  wholly  impossi 
ble  to  be  true.  No  man  of  common  information  ever  believed  a  sylla 
ble  of  it.  Yet  it  was  of  that  class  of  falsehoods  which,  by  continued  rep 
etition  through  all  the  organs  of  detraction  and  abuse,  are  capable  of 
misleading  those  who  are  already  far  misled,  and  of  further  fanning 
passion  already  kindling  into  flame.  Doubtless  it  served  its  day,  and, 
in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  the  end  designed  by  it.  Having  done  that, 
it  has  sunk  into  the  general  mass  of  stale  and  loathed  calumnies.  It 
is  the  very  cast-off  slough  of  a  polluted  and  shameless  press.  Incapa 
ble  of  further  mischief,  it  lies  in  the  sewer,  lifeless  and  despised.  It  is 
not  now,  sir,  in  the  power  of  the  honorable  member  to  give  it  dignity 
or  decency,  by  attempting  to  elevate  it,  and  to  introduce  it  into  the 
Senate.  He  cannot  change  it  from  what  it  is — an  object  of  general 
disgust  and  scorn.  On  the  contrary,  the  contact,  if  he  choose  to  touch 
it,  is  more  likely  to  drag  him  down,  down,  to  the  place  where  it  lies  it 
self. 

But,  sir,  the  honorable  member  was  not,  for  other  reasons,  entirely 
happy  in  his  allusion  to  the  story  of  Banquo's  murder  and  Banquo's 
ghost.  It  was  not,  I  think,  the  friends,  but  the  enemies  of  the  mur 
dered  Banquo,  at  whose  bidding  his  spirit  would  not  down.  The 
honorable  gentleman  is  fresh  in  his  reading  of  the  English  classics,  and 
can  put  me  right  if  I  am  wrong;  but  according  to  my  poor  recollection, 
it  was  at  those  who  had  begun  with  caresses,  and  ended  with  foul  and 
treacherous  murder,  that  the  gory  locks  wrere  shaken.  The  ghost  of 
Banquo,  like  that  of  Hamlet,  was  an  honest  ghost.  It  disturbed  no 
innocent  man.  It  knew  where  its  appearance  would  strike  terror,  and 
who  would  cry  out,  A  ghost!  It  made  itself  visible  in  the  right  quarter, 
and  compelled  the  guilty,  and  the  conscience-smitten,  and  none  others, 
to  start,  with, 

11  Prithee,  see  there  !  behold  !— look  !  lo  ! 
If  I  stand  here,  I  saw  him  !" 

Their  eyeballs  were  seared — was  it  not  so,  sir? — who  had  thought  to 
shield  themselves  by  concealing  their  own  hand,  and  laying  the  impu 
tation  of  the  crime  on  a  low  and  hireling  agency  in  wickedness;  who 
had  vainly  attempted  to  stifle  the  workings  of  their  own  coward  con- 


228  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

sciences;  by  ejaculating,  through  white  lips  and  chattering  teeth, 
"  Thou  canst  not  say  I  did  it!"  I  have  misread  the  great  poet,  if  it 
\vas  those  who  had  no  way  partaken  in  the  deed  of  the  death,  who 
either  found  that  they  were,  or  feared  that  they  should  be,  pushed  from 
their  stools  by  the  ghost  of  the  slain,  or  who  cried  out  to  a  spectre 
created  by  their  own  fears,  and  their  own  remorse,  "  A vaunt !  and 
quit  our  sight!" 

There  is  another  particular,  sir,  in  which  the  honorable  member's 
quick  perception  of  resemblances  might,  I  should  think,  have  seen  some 
thing  in  the  story  of  Banquo,  making  it  not  altogether  a  subject  of  the 
most  pleasant  contemplation.  Those  who  murdered  Banquo,  what 
did  they  win  by  it?  Substantial  good  ?  Permanent  power  ?  Or  dis 
appointment,  rather,  and  sore  mortification — dust  and  ashes — the 
common  fate  of  vaulting  ambition  overleaping  itself?  Did  not  even- 
handed  justice,  ere  long,  commend  the  poisoned  chalice  to  their  own 
lips  ?  Did  they  not  soon  find  that  for  another  they  had  "  filled  their 
mind?" — that  their  ambition,  though  apparently  for  the  moment  suc 
cessful,  had  but  put  a  barren  sceptre  in  their  grasp  ?  Ay,  sir, — 

"  A  barren  sceptre  in  their  gripe, 
Thence  to  be  wrenched  by  an  unlineal  hand, 
No  son  of  theirs  succeeding." 

Sir,  I  need  pursue  the  allusion  no  further.  I  leave  the  honorable 
gentleman  to  run  it  out  at  his  leisure,  and  to  derive  from  it  all  the 
gratification  it  is  calculated  to  administer.  If  he  finds  himself  pleased 
with  the  associations,  and  prepared  to  be  quite  satisfied,  though  the 
parallel  should  be  entirely  completed,  I  had  almost  said  I  am  satisfied 
also — but  that  I  shall  think  of.  Yes,  sir,  I  will  think  of  that. 

In  the  course  of  my  observations  the  other  day,  Mr.  President,  I 
paid  a  passing  tribute  of  respect  to  a  very  worthy  man,  Mr.  Dane,  of 
Massachusetts.  It  so  happened,  that  he  drew  the  ordinance  of  17^7 
for  the  government  of  the  North-western  Territory.  A  man  of  so 
much  ability,  and  so  little  pretence;  of  so  great  a  capacity  to  do  good, 
and  so  unmixed  a  disposition  to  do  it  for  its  own  sake;  a  gentleman 
who  acted  an  important  part,  forty  years  ago,  in  a  measure  the  in 
fluence  of  which  is  still  deeply  felt  in  the  very  matter  which  was  the 
subject  of  debate,  might,  I  thought,  receive  from  me  a  commendatory 
recognition. 

But  the  honorable  member  was  inclined  to  be  facetious  on  the  sub 
ject.  He  was  rather  disposed  to  make  it  matter  of  ridicule  that  I  had 
introduced  into  the  debate  the  name  of  one  Natfcan  Dane,  of  whom  he 
assures  us  he  had  never  before  heard.  Sir,  if  the  honorable  member 
had  never  before  heard  of  Mr.  Dane,  I  am  sorry  for  it.  It  shows 
him  less  acquainted  \vith  the  public  men  of  the  country  than  I  had  sup 
posed.  Let  me  tell  him,  however,  that  a  sneer  from  him  at  the  men 
tion  of  the  name  of  Mr.  Dane  is  in  bad  taste.  It  may  well  be  a  high 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  229 

mark  of  ambition,  sir,  either  with  the  honorable  gentleman  or  myself, 
t  >  accomplish  as  much  to  make  our  names  known  to  advantage,  and 
remembered  with  gratitude,  as  Mr.  Dane  has  accomplished.  But  the 
truth  is,  sir,  I  suspect  that  Mr.  Dane  lives  a  little  too  far  north.  He  is 
of  Massachusetts,  and  too  near  the  north  star  to  be  reached  by  the 
honorable  gentleman's  telescope.  If  his  sphere  had  happened  to 
range  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  he  might,  probably,  have 
come  within  the  scope  of  his  vision! 

I  spoke,  sir,  of  the  ordinance  of  1787,  which  prohibited  slavery  in  all 
future  t:mes  north-west  of  the  Ohio,  as  a  measure  of  great  wisdom  and 
foresignt,  and  one  which  had  been  attended  with  highly  beneficial  and 
permanent  consequences.  I  supposed  that  on  this  point  no  two  gen 
tlemen  in  the  Senate  could  entertain  different  opinions.  But  the 
simple  expression  of  this  sentiment  has  led  the  gentleman,  not  only 
into  a  labored  defence  of  slavery  in  the  abstract,  and  on  principle, 
but  also  into  a  warm  accusation  against  me,  as  having  attacked  the 
system  of  domestic  slavery  now  existing  in  the  Southern  States.  For 
all  this  there  was  not  the  slightest  foundation  in  any  thing  said  or  inti 
mated  by  me.  I  did  not  utter  a  single  word  which  any  ingenuity 
could  torture  into  an  attack  on  the  slavery  of  the  south.  I  said  only 
that  it  was  highly  wise  and  useful  in  legislating  for  the  north-western 
country,  while  it  was  yet  a  wilderness,  to  prohibit  the  introduction  of 
slaves;  and  added,  that  I  presumed,  in  the  neighboring  state  of  Ken 
tucky,  there  was  no  reflecting  and  intelligent  gentleman  who  would 
doubt  that,  if  the  same  prohibition  had  been  extended,  at  the  same 
early  period,  over  that  commonwealth,  her  strength  and  population 
would  at  this  day,  have  been  far  greater  than  they  are.  If  these  opin 
ions  be  thought  doubtful,  they  are,  nevertheless,  I  trust,  neither  extra 
ordinary,  nor  disrespectful.  They  attack  nobody  and  menace  nobody. 
And  yet,  sir,  the  gentleman's  optics  have  discovered,  even  in  the  mere 
expression  of  this  sentiment,  what  he  calls  the  very  spirit  of  the  Mis 
souri  question!  He  represents  me  as  making  an  onset  on  the  whole 
south,  and  manifesting  a  spirit  which  would  interfere  with  and  disturb 
their  domestic  condition.  Sir,  this  injustice  no  otherwise  surprises  me 
than  as  it  is  done  here,  and  done  without  the  slightest  pretence  of  ground 
for  it.  I  say  it  only  surprises  me  as  being  done  here;  for  I  know  full 
well  that  it  is  and  has  been  the  settled  policy  of  some  persons  in  the 
south,  for  years,  to  represent  the  people  of  the  north  as  disposed  to 
interfere  with  them  in  their  own  exclusive  and  peculiar  concerns.  This 
is  a  delicate  and  sensitive  point  in  southern  feeling,  and  of  late  years 
it  has  always  been  touched,  and  generally  with  effect,  whenever  the 
object  has  been  to  unite  the  whole  south  against  northern  men  or  nor 
thern  measures.  This  feeling,  always  carefully  kept  alive,  and  main 
tained  at  too  intense  a  heat  to  admit  discrimination  or  reflection,  is  a 
lever  of  great  power  in  our  political  machine.  It  moves  vast  bodies, 
and  gives  to  them  one  and  the  same  direction.  But  the  feeling  is  with- 


230  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

out  adequate  cause,  and  the  suspicion  which  exists  wholly  groundless. 
There  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  a  disposition  in  the  north  to  inter 
fere  with  these  interests  of  the  south.  Such  interference  has  never 
been  supposed  to  be  within  the  power  of  government,  nor  has  it  been 
in  any  way  attempted.  It  has  always  been  regarded  as  a  matter  of  do 
mestic  policy,  left  with  the  states  themselves,  and  with  which  the  federal 
government  had  nothing  to  do.  Certainly,  sir,  I  am,  and  ever  have 
been,  of  that  opinion.  The  gentleman,  indeed,  argues  that  slavery  in 
the  abstract  is  no  evil.  Most  assuredly  I  need  not  say  I  differ  with 
him  altogether  and  most  widely  on  that  point.  I  regard  domestic 
slavery  as  one  of  the  greatest  of  evils,  both  moral  and  political.  But, 
though  it  be  a  malady,  and  whether  it  be  curable,  and  if  so,  by  what 
means;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  whether  it  be  the  vulnus  immcdicabile  of 
the  social  system,  I  leave  it  to  those  whose  right  and  duty  it  is  to  in 
quire  and  to  decide.  And  this  I  believe,  sir,  is,  and  uniformly  has 
been,  the  sentiment  of  the  north.  Let  us  look  a  little  at  the  history  of 
this  matter. 

When  the  present  constitution  was  submitted  for  the  ratification  of 
the  people,  there  were  those  who  imagined  that  the  powers  of  the  gov 
ernment  which  it  proposed  to  establish  might,  perhaps,  in  some  possi 
ble  mode,  be  exerted  in  measures  tending  to  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
This  suggestion  would,  of  course,  attract  much  attention  in  the  south 
ern  conventions.  In  that  of  Virginia,  Governor  Randolph  said, — 

"  I  hope  there  is  none  here,  who,  considering  the  subject  in  the 
calm  light  of  philosophy,  will  make  an  objection  dishonorable  to  Vir 
ginia — that,  at  the  moment  they  are  securing  the  rights  of  their  citizens, 
an  objection  is  started,  that  there  is  a  spark  of  hope  that  those  unfortu 
nate  men  now  held  in  bondage  may,  by  the  operation  of  the  general 
government,  be  made  free." 

At  the  very  first  Congress  petitions  on  the  subject  were  presented, 
if  I  mistake  not,  from  different  states.  The  Pennsylvania  Society  for 
Promoting  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  took  a  lead,  and  laid  before  Con 
gress  a  memorial,  praying  Congress  to  promote  the  abolition  by  such 
powers  as  it  possessed.  This  memorial  was  referred,  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  to  a  select  committee,  consisting  of  Mr.  Foster,  of 
New  Hampshire,  Mr.  Gerry,  of  Massachusetts,  Mr.  Hunting-ton,  of 
Connecticut,  Mr.  Lawrence,  of  New  York,  Mr.  Sinnickson,  of  New- 
Jersey,  Mr.  Hartley,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Mr.  Parker,  of  Virginia; 
all  of  them,  sir,  as  you  will  observe,  northern  men,  but  the  last.  This 
committee  made  a  report,  which  was  committed  to  a  committee  of  the 
whole  house,  and  there  considered  and  discussed  on  several  days;  and 
being  amended,  although  in  no  material  respect,  it  was  made  to  ex 
press  three  distinct  propositions  on  the  subjects  of  slavery  and  the 
slave  trade.  First,  in  the  words  of  the  constitution,  that  Congress 
could  not,  prior  to  the  year  iSoS,  prohibit  the  migration  or  importa 
tion  of  such  persons  as  any  of  the  states  then  existing  should  thinK 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  231 

proper  to  admit.  Second,  that  Congress  had  authority  to  restrain  the 
citizens  of  the  United  States  from  carrying  on  the  African  slave  trade 
for  the  purpose  of  supplying  foreign  countries.  On  this  proposition, 
our  early  laws  against  those  who  engage  in  that  traffic  are  founded. 
The  third  proposition,  and  that  which  bears  on  the  present  question, 
was  expressed  in  the  following  terms: — 

"  Resolved,  That  Congress  have  no  authority  to  interfere  in  the 
emancipation  of  slaves,  or  in  the  treatment  of  them  in  any  of  the 
states;  it  remaining  with  the.several  states  alone  to  provide  rules  and 
regulations  therein,  which  humanity  and  true  policy  may  require." 

This  resolution  received  the  sanction  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  so  early  as  March,  1790.  And,  now,  sir,  the  honorable  member 
will  allow  me  to  remind  him,  that  not  only  were  the  select  committee 
who  reported  the  resolution,  with  a  single  exception,  all  northern  men, 
but  also  that  of  the  members  then  composing  the  House  of  Representa 
tives,  a  large  majority  k  I  believe  nearly  two  thirds,  y/ere  northern  men 
also. 

The  house  agreed  to  insert  these  resolutions  in  its  journal  ;  and,  from 
that  day  to  this,  it  has  never  been  maintained  or  contended  that  Con 
gress  had  any  authority  to  regulate  or  interfere  with  the  condition  of 
slaves  in  the  several  states.  No  northern  gentleman,  to  my  knowl 
edge,  has  moved  any  such  question  in  either  house  of  Congress. 

The  fears  of  the  south,  whatever  fears  they  might  have  entertained, 
were  allayed  and  quieted  by  this  early  decision  ;  and  so  remained,  till 
they  were  excited  afresh,  without  cause,  but  for  collateral  and  in 
direct  purposes.  When  it  became  necessary,  or  was  thought  so,  by 
some  political  persons,  to  find  an  unvarying  ground  for  the  exclusion 
of  northern  men  from  confidence  and  from  lead  in  the  affairs  of  the 
republic,  then,  and  not  till  then,  the  cry  was  raised,  and  the  feeling 
industriously  excited,  that  the  influence  of  northern  men  in  the  public 
councils  would  endanger  the  relation  of  master  and  slave.  For  my 
self,  I  claim  no  other  merit,  than  that  this  gross  and  enormous  injus 
tice  towards  the  whole  north  has  not  wrought  upon  me  to  change  my 
opinions,  or  my  political  conduct.  I  hope  I  am  above  violating  my 
principles,  even  under  the  smart  of  injury  and  false  imputations.  Un 
just  suspicions  and  undeserved  reproach,  whatever  pain  I  may  experi 
ence  from  them,  will  not  induce  me,  I  trust,  nevertheless,  to  overstep 
the  limits  of  constitutional  duty,  or  to  encroach  on  the  rights  of  others. 
The  domestic  slavery  of  the  south  I  leave  where  I  find  it — in  the 
hands  of  their  own  governments.  It  is  their  affair,  not  mine.  Nor 
do  I  complain  of  the  peculiar  effect  which  the  magnitude  of  that  popu 
lation  has  had  in  the  distribution  of  power  under  this  federal  govern 
ment.  We  know,  sir,  that  the  representation  of  the  states  in  the 
other  house  is  not  equal.  We  know  that  great  advantage,  in  that  res 
pect,  is  enjoyed  by  the  slaveholding  states;  and  we  know,  too,  that 
the  intended  equivalent  for  that  advantage — that  is  to  say,  the  imposi- 


232  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

tion  of  direct  taxes  in  the  same  ratio — has  become  merely  nominal  ; 
the  habit  of  the  government  being  almost  invariably  to  collect  its  reve 
nues  from  other  sources,  and  in  other  modes.  Nevertheless,  I  do 
not  complain  ;  nor  would  I  countenance  any  movement  to  alter  this 
arrangement  of  representation.  It  is  the  original  bargain,  the  com 
pact — let  it  stand  ;  let  the  advantage  of  it  be  fully  enjoyed.  The 
Union  itself  is  too  full  of  benefit  to  be  hazarded  in  propositions  for 
changing  its  original  basis.  I  go  for  the  constitution  as  it  is,  and  for 
the  Union  as  it  is.  But  I  am  resolved  not  to  submit,  in  silence,  to 
accusations,  either  against  myself  individually,  or  against  the  north, 
wholly  unfounded  and  unjust — accusations  which  impute  to  us  a  dis 
position  to  evade  the  constitutional  compact,  and  to  extend  the  power 
of  the  government  over  the  internal  laws  and  domestic  condition  of 
the  states.  All  such  accusations,  wherever  and  whenever  made,  all 
insinuations  of  the  existence  of  any  such  purposes,  I  know  and  feel  to 
be  groundless  and  injurious.  And  we  must  confide  in  southern  gentle 
men  themselves;  we  must  trust  to  those  whose  integrity  of  heart  and 
magnanimity  of  feeling  will  lead  them  to  a  desire  to  maintain  and  dis 
seminate  truth,  and  who  possess  the  means  of  its  diffusion  with  the 
southern  public;  we  must  leave  it  to  them  to  disabuse  that  public  of  its 
prejudices.  But,  in  the  mean  time,  for  my  own  part,  I  shall  continue 
to  act  justly,  whether  those  towards  whom  justice  is  exercised  receive 
it  with  candor  or  with  contumely. 

Having  had  occasion  to  recur  to  the  ordinance  of  1787,  in  order  to 
defend  myself  against  the  inferences  which  the  honorable  member  has 
chosen  to  draw  from  my  former  observations  on  that  subject,  I  am 
not  willing  now  entirely  to  take  leave  of  it  without  another  remark. 
It  need  hardly  be  said,  that  that  paper  expresses  just  sentiments  on 
the  great  subject  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  Such  sentiments  were 
common,  and  abound  in  all  our  state  papers  of  that  day.  But  this 
ordinance  did  that  which  was  not  so  common,  and  which  is  not,  even 
now,  universal;  that  is,  it  set  forth  and  declared,  as  a  high  and  binding 
duty  of  government  itself,  to  encourage  schools  and  advance  the  means 
of  education;  on  the  plain  reason  that  religion,  morality,  and  knowl 
edge  are  necessary  to  good  government,  and  to  the  happiness  of  man 
kind.  One  observation  further.  The  important  provision  incor 
porated  into  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  several  of  those 
of  the  states,  and  recently,  as  we  have  seen,  adopted  into  the  reformed 
constitution  of  Virginia,  restraining  legislative  power,  in  questions  of 
private  right,  and  from  impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts,  is  first 
introduced  and  established,  as  far  as  I  am  informed,  as  matter  of  ex 
press  written  constitutional  law,  in  this  ordinance  of  1787.  And  I 
must  add,  also,  in  regard  to  the  author  of  the  ordinance,  who  has  not 
had  the  happiness  to  attract  the  gentleman's  notice  heretofore,  nor  to 
avoid  his  sarcasm  now,  that  he  was  chairman  of  that  select  committee 
of  the  old  Congress,  whose  report  first  expressed  the  strong  sense  of 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  233 

that  body,  that  the  old  confederation  was  not  adequate  to  the  exigen 
cies  of  the  country,  and  recommending  to  the  states  to  send  delegates 
to  the  convention  which  formed  the  present  constitution. 

An  attempt  has  been  made  to  transfer  from  the  north  to  the  south 
the  honor  of  this  exclusion  of  slavery  from  the  North-western  Terri 
tory.  The  journal,  without  argument  or  comment,  refutes  such  attempt. 
The  session  of  Virginia  was  made  March,  1784.  On  the  igth  of  April 
following,  a  committee,  consisting  of  Messrs.  Jefferson,  Chase,  and 
Howell,  reported  a  plan  for  a  temporary  government  of  the  territory, 
in  which  was  this  article:  "That  after  the  year  1800,  there  shall  be 
neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  in  any  of  the  said  states, 
otherwise  than  in  punishment  of  crimes,  whereof  the  party  shall  have 
been  convicted."  Mr.  Speight,  of  North  Carolina,  moved  to  strike 
out  this  paragraph.  The  question  was  put,  according  to  the  form 
then  practised:  "Shall  these  words  stand,  as  part  of  the  plan,"  &c. 
New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New 
York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania — seven  states — voted  in  the 
affirmative  ;  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  South  Carolina  in  the  negative. 
North  Carolina  was  divided.  As  the  consent  of  nine  states  was  nec 
essary,  the  words  could  not  stand,  and  were  struck  out  accordingly. 
Mr.  Jefferson  voted  for  the  clause,  but  was  overruled  by  his  colleagues. 

In  March  of  the  next  year  (1785),  Mr.  King,  of  Massachusetts,  sec 
onded  by  Mr.  Ellery,  of  Rhode  Island,  proposed  the  formerly  rejected 
article,  with  this  addition:  "And  that  this  regulation  shall  be  an 
article  of  compact,  and  remain  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  con 
stitution  between  the  thirteen  original  states  and  each  of  the  states 
described  in  the  resolve,"  &c.  On  this  clause,  which  provided  the 
adequate  and  thorough  security,  the  eight  Northern  States,  at  that 
time,  voted  affirmatively,  and  the  four  Southern  States  negatively. 
The  votes  of  nine  states  were  not  yet  obtained,  and  thus  the  provision 
was  again  rejected  by  the  Southern  States.  The  perseverance  of  the 
north  held  out,  and  two  years  afterwards  the  object  was  attained.  It 
is  no  derogation  from  the  credit,  whatever  that  may  be,  of  drawing 
the  ordinance,  that  its  principles  had  before  been  prepared  and  dis 
cussed  in  the  form  of  resolutions.  If  one  should  reason  in  that  way, 
what  would  become  of  the  distinguished  honor  of  the  author  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence?  There  is  not  a  sentiment  in  that  paper 
which  had  not  been  voted  and  resolved  in  the  assemblies,  and  other 
popular  bodies  in  the  country,  over  and  over  again. 

But  the  honorable  member  has  now  found  out  that  this  gentleman, 
Mr.  Dane,  was  a  member  of  the  Hartford  Convention.  However  unin 
formed  the  honorable  member  may  be  of  characters  and  occurrences 
at  the  north,  it  would  seem  that  he  has  at  his  elbows,  on  this  occasion, 
some  high-minded  and  lofty  spirit,  some  magnanimous  and  true- 
hearted  monitor,  possessing  the  means  of  local  knowledge,  and  ready 
to  supply  the  honorable  member  with  every  thing,  down  even  to  for- 


234  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

gotten  and  moth-eaten  twopenny  pamphlets,  which  may  be  used  to 
the  disadvantage  of  his  own  country.  But,  as  to  the  Hartford  Con 
vention,  sir,  allow  me  to  say,  that  the  proceedings  of  that  body  seem 
now  to  be  less  read  and  studied  in  New  England  than  farther  south. 
They  appear  to  be  looked  to,  not  in  New  England,  but  elsewhere,  for 
the  purpose  of  seeing  how  far  they  may  serve  as  a  precedent.  But 
they  will  not  answer  the  purpose — they  are  quite  too  tame.  The  lati 
tude  in  which  they  originated  was  too  cold.  Other  conventions,  of 
more  recent  existence,  have  gone  a  whole  bar's  length  beyond  it.  The 
learned  doctors  of  Colleton  and  Abbeville  have  pushed  their  commen 
taries  on  the  Hartford  collect  so  far  that  the  original  text  writers  arc 
thrown  entirely  into  the  shade.  I  have  nothing  to  do,  sir,  with  the 
Hartford  Convention.  Its  journal,  which  the  gentleman  has  quoted,  I 
have  never  read.  So  far  as  the  honorable  member  may  discover  in  its 
proceedings  a  spirit  in  any  degree  resembling  that  which  was  avowed 
and  justified  in  those  other  conventions  to  which  I  have  alluded,  or  so 
far  as  those  proceedings  can  be  shown  to  be  disloyal  to  the  constitu 
tion,  or  tending  to  disunion,  so  far  I  shall  be  as  ready  as  any  one  to 
bestow  on  them  reprehension  and  censure. 

Having  dwelt  long  on  this  convention,  and  other  occurrences  of 
that  day,  in  the  hope,  probably  (which  will  not  be  gratified),  that  I 
should  leave  the  course  of  this  debate  to  follow  him  at  length  in  those 
excursions,  the  honorable  member  returned,  and  attempted  another 
object.  He  referred  to  a  speech  of  mine  in  the  other  house,  the  same 
which  I  had  occasion  to  allude  to  myself  the  other  day;  and  has  quoted 
a  passage  or  two  from  it,  with  a  bold  though  uneasy  and  laboring  air 
of  confidence,  as  if  he  had  detected  in  me  an  inconsistency.  Judging 
from  the  gentleman's  manner,  a  stranger  to  the  course  of  the  debate, 
and  to  the  point  in  discussion,  would  have  imagined,  from  so  trium 
phant  a  tone,  that  the  honorable  member  was  about  to  overwhelm  me 
with  a  manifest  contradiction.  Any  one  who  heard  him,  and  who  had 
not  heard  what  I  had,  in  fact,  previously  said,  must  have  thought  me 
routed  and  discomfited,  as  the  gentleman  had  promised.  Sir,  a  breath 
blows  all  this  triumph  away.  There  is  not  the  slightest  difference  in 
the  sentiments  of  my  remarks  on  the  two  occasions.  What  I  said 
here  on  Wednesday  is  in  exact  accordance  with  the  opinions  expressed 
by  me  in  the  other  house  in  1825.  Though  the  gentleman  had  the 
metaphysics  of  Hudibras — though  he  were  able 

"  to  sever  and  divide 
A  hair  'twixt  north  and  north-west  side,'' 

he  could  not  yet  insert  his  metaphysical  scissors  between  the  fair 
readinS  of  my  remarks  in  1825  and  what  I  said  here  last  week.  There 
is  not  only  no  contradiction,  no  difference,  but,  in  truth,  too  exact  a 
similarity,  both  in  thought  and  language,  to  be  entirely  in  just  taste. 
I  had  myself  quoted  the  same  speech;  had  recurred  to  it,  and  spoke 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  235 

with  it  open  before  me;  and  much  of  what  I  said  was  little  more  than 
a  repetition  from  it.  In  order  to  make  finishing  work  with  this  alleged 
contradiction,  permit  me  to  recur  to  the  origin  of  this  debate,  and  re 
view  its  course.  This  seems  expedient,  and  may  be  done  as  well  now 
as  at  any  time. 

Well,  then,  its  history  is  this:  The  honorable  member  from  Connecti 
cut  moved  a  resolution,  which  constituted  the  first  branch  of  that  which 
is  now  before  us;  that  is  to  say,  a  resolution  instructing  the  committee 
on  public  lands  to  inquire  into  the  expediency  of  limiting,  for  a  certain 
period,  the  sales  of  public  lands  to  such  as  have  heretofore  been  offered 
for  sale;  and  whether  sundry  offices,  connected  with  the  sales  of  the 
lands,  might  not  be  abolished  without  detriment  to  the  public  service. 

In  the  progress  of  the  discussion  which  arose  on  this  resolution,  an 
honorable  member  from  New  Hampshire  moved  to  amend  the  resolu 
tion,  so  as  entirely  to  reverse  its  object;  that  is,  to  strike  it  all  out,  and 
insert  a  direction  to  the  committee  to  inquire  into  the  expediency  of 
adopting  measures  to  hasten  the  sales,  and  extend  more  rapidily  the 
surveys  of  the  lands. 

The  honorable  member  from  Maine  (Mr.  Sprague)  suggested  that 
both  these  propositions  might  well  enough  go  for  consideration,  to  the 
committee;  and  in  this  state  of  the  question,  the  member  from  South 
Carolina  addressed  the  Senate  in  his  first  speech.  He  rose,  he  said,  to 
give  us  his  own  free  thoughts  on  the  public  lands.  I  saw  him  rise,  with 
pleasure,  and  listened  with  expectation,  though  before  he  concluded  I 
was  filled  with  surprise.  Certainly,  I  was  never  more  surprised  than 
to  find  him  following  up,  to  the  extent  he  did,  the  sentiments  and  opin 
ions  which  the  gentleman  from  Missouri  had  put  forth,  and  which  it  is 
known  he  has  long  entertained. 

I  need  not  repeat,  at  large,  the  general  topics  of  the  honorable 
gentleman's  speech.  When  he  said,  yesterday,  that  he  did  not  attack 
the  eastern  states,  he  certainly  must  have  forgotten  not  only  particular 
remarks,  but  the  whole  drift  and  tenor  of  his  speech;  unless  he  means 
by  not  attacking,  that  he  did  not  commence  hostilities,  but  that  another 
had  preceded  him  in  the  attack.  He,  in  the  first  place,  disapproved  of 
the  whole  course  of  the  government  for  forty  years,  in  regard  to  its 
dispositions  of  the  public  land;  and  then,  turning  northward  and  east 
ward,  and  fancying  he  had  found  a  cause  for  alleged  narrowness  and 
niggardliness  in  the  "  accursed  policy"  of  the  tariff,  to  which  he  repre 
sented  the  people  of  New  England  as  wedded,  he  went  on  for  a  full 
hour,  with  remarks,  the  whole  scope  of  which  was  to  exhibit  the  re 
sults  of  this  policy,  in  feelings  and  in  measures  unfavorable  to  the  west. 
I  thought  his  opinions  unfounded  and  erroneous,  as  to  the  general 
course  of  the  government,  and  ventured  to  reply  to  them. 

The  gentleman  had  remarked  on  the  analogy  of  other  cases,  and 
quoted  the  conduct  of  European  governments  towards  their  own  sub 
jects,  settling  on  this  continent,  as  in  point,  to  show  that  we  had  been 


236  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

harsh  and  rigid  in  selling  when  we  should  have  given  the  public  lands 
to  settlers.  I  thought  the  honorable  member  had  suffered  his  judg 
ment  to  be  betrayed  by  a  false  analogy;  that  he  was  struck  with  an 
appearance  of  resemblance  where  there  was  no  real  similitude.  I 
think  so  still.  The  first  settlers  of  North  America  were  enterprising 
spirits,  engaged  in  private  adventure,  or  fleeing  from  tyranny  at  home. 
When  arrived  here,  they  were  forgotten  by  the  mother  country,  or 
remembered  only  to  be  oppressed.  Carried  away  again  by  the  appear 
ance  of  analogy,  or  struck  with  the  eloquence  of  the  passage,  the  honor 
able  member  yesterday  observed  that  the  conduct  of  government 
towards  the  western  emigrants,  or  my  representation  of  it,  brought  to 
his  mind  a  celebrated  speech  in  the  British  Parliament.  It  was,  sir, 
the  speech  of  Colonel  Barre.  On  the  question  of  the  stamp  act,  or  tea 
tax,  I  forget  which,  Colonel  Barre  had  heard  a  member  on  the  treasury- 
bench  argue,  that  the  people  of  the  United  States,  being  British  colon 
ists,  planted  by  the  maternal  care,  nourished  by  the  indulgence,  and 
protected  by  the  arms  of  England,  would  not  grudge  their  mite  to  re 
lieve  the  mother  countiy  from  the  heavy  burden  under  which  she 
groaned.  The  language  of  Colonel  Barre,  in  reply  to  this,  was,  "  They 
planted  by  your  care  ?  Your  oppression  planted  them  in  America. 
They  fled  from  your  tyranny,  and  grew  by  your  neglect  of  them.  So 
soon  as  you  began  to  care  for  them,  you  showed  your  care  by  sending 
persons  to  spy  out  their  liberties,  misrepresent  their  character,  prey 
upon  them,  and  eat  out  their  substance." 

And  now  does  the  honorable  gentleman  mean  to  maintain  that  lan 
guage  like  this  is  applicable  to  the  conduct  of  the  government  of  the 
United  States  towards  the  western  emigrants,  or  to  any  representation 
given  by  me  of  that  conduct  ?  Were  the  settlers  in  the  west  driven 
thither  by  our  oppression  ?  Have  they  flourished  only  by  our  neglect 
of  them  ?  Has  the  government  done  nothing  but  to  prey  upon  them, 
and  eat  out  their  substance  ?  Sir,  this  fervid  eloquence  of  the  British 
speaker,  just  when  and  where  it  was  uttered,  and  fit  to  remain  an  ex 
ercise  for  the  schools,  is  not  a  little  out  of  place,  when  it  was  brought 
ihence  to  be  applied  here,  to  the  conduct  of  our  own  country  towards  her 
own  citizens.  From  America  to  England  it  may  be  true;  from  Ameri 
cans  to  their  own  government  it  would  be  strange  language.  Let  us 
leave  it  to  be  recited  and  declaimed  by  our  boys  against  a  foreign 
nation;  not  introduce  it  here,  to  recite  and  declaim  ourselves  against 
our  own. 

But  I  come  to  the  point  of  the  alleged  contradiction.  In  my  remarks 
on  Wednesday,  I  contended  that  we  could  not  give  away  gratuitously 
all  the  public  lands;  that  we  held  them  in  trust;  that  the  government 
had  solemnly  pledged  itself  to  dispose  of  them  as  a  common  fund  for 
the  common  benefit,  and  to  sell  and  settle  them  as  its  discretion  should 
dictate.  Now,  sir,  what  contradiction  does  the  gentleman  find  to  this 
sentiment  in  the  speech  of  1825?  He  quotes  me  as  having  then  said, 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  237 

thrt  we  ought  not  to  hug  these  lands  as  a  very  great  treasure.  Very 
well,  sir;  supposing  me  to  be  accurately  reported  in  that  expression, 
\vhat  is  the  contradiction?  I  have  not  now  said,  that  we  should  hug 
these  lands  as  a  favorite  source  of  pecuniary  income.  No  such  thing. 
It  is  not  my  view.  What  I  have  said,  and  what  I  do  say,  is,  that  they 
are  a  common  fund — to  be  disposed  of  for  the  common  benefit — to  be 
sold  at  low  prices,  for  the  accommodation  of  settlers,  keeping  the 
object  of  settling  the  lands  as  much  in  view  as  that  of  raising  money 
from  them.  This  I  say  now,  ami  this  I  have  always  said.  Is  this 
hugging  them  as  a  favorite  treasure  ?  Is  there  no  difference  between 
hugging  and  hoarding  this  fund,  on  the  one  hand,  as  a  great  treasure, 
and  on  the  other  of  disposing  of  it  at  low  prices,  placing  the  proceeds 
in  the  general  treasury  of  the  Union?  My  opinion  is,  that  as  much  is 
to  be  made  of  the  land,  as  fairly  and  reasonably  may  be,  selling  it  all 
the  while  at  such  rates  as  to  give  the  fullest  effect  to  settlement.  This 
is  not  giving  it  all  away  to  the  states,  as  the  gentleman  would  propose; 
nor  is  it  hugging  the  fund  closely  and  tenaciously,  as  a  favorite  treas 
ure;  but  it  is,  in  my  judgment,  a  just  and  wise  policy,  perfectly  accord 
ing  with  all  the  various  duties  which  rest  on  government.  So  much 
for  my  contradiction.  And  what  is  it?  Where  is  the  ground  of  the 
gentleman's  triumph  ?  What  inconsistency,  in  word  or  doctrine,  has 
he  been  able  to  detect?  Sir,  if  this  be  a  sample  of  that  discomfiture 
with  which  the  honorable  gentleman  threatened  me,  commend  me  to 
the  word  discomfiture  for  the  rest  of  my  life. 

But,  after  all,  this  is  not  the  point  of  the  debate  ;  and  I  must  bring 
the  gentleman  back  to  that  which  is  the  point. 

The  real  question  between  me  and  him  is,  Where  has  the  doctrine 
been  advanced,  at  the  south  or  the  east,  that  the  population  of  the  west 
should  be  retarded,  or,  at  least,  need  not  be  hastened,  on  account  of 
its  effect  to  drain  off  the  people  from  the  Atlantic  States  ?  Is  this  doc 
trine,  as  has  been  alleged,  of  eastern  origin  ?  That  is  the  question. 
Has  the  gentleman  found  any  thing  by  which  he  can  make  good  his 
accusation  ?  I  submit  to  the  Senate,  that  he  has  entirely  failed  ;  and 
as  far  as  this  debate  has  shown,  the  only  person  who  has  advanced 
s-uch  sentiments  is  a  gentleman  from  South  Carolina,  and  a  friend  to 
the  honorable  member  himself.  The  honorable  gentleman  has  given 
,  no  answer  to  this  ;  there  is  none  which  can  be  given.  This  simple 
;  fact,  while  it  requires  no  comment  to  enforce  it,  defies  all  argument  to 
refute  it.  I  could  refer  to  the  speeches  of  another  Southern  gentle 
man,  in  3'ears  before,  of  the  same  general  character,  and  to  the  same 
effect,  as  that  which  has  been  quoted;  but  I  will  not  consume  the  time 
of  the  Senate  by  the  reading  of  them. 

So  then,,  sir,  New  England  is  guiltless  of  the  policy  of  retarding 
western  population,  and  of  all  envy  and  jealousy  of  the  growth  of  the 
new  states.  Whatever  there  be  of  that  policy  in  the  country,  no  part 
of  it  is  hers.  If  it  has  a  local  habitation,  the  honorable  member  has 


238  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

probably  seen,  by  this  time,  where  he  is  to  look  for  it  ;  and  if  it  now 
has  received  a  name,  he  himself  has  christened  it. 

We  approach,  at  length,  sir,  to  a  more  important  part  of  the  honora 
ble  gentleman's  observations.  Since  it  does  not  accord  with  my  views 
of  justice  and  policy  to  vote  away  the  public  lands  altogether,  as  mere 
matter  of  gratuity,  I  am  asked,  by  the  honorable  gentleman,  on  what 
ground  it  is  that  I  consent  to  give  them  away  in  particular  instances. 
How,  he  inquires,  do  I  reconcile  with  these  professed  sentiments  my 
support  of  measures  appropriating  portions  of  the  lands  to  particular 
roads,  particular  canals,  particular  rivers,  and  particular  institutions  of 
education  in  the  west  ?  This  leads,  sir,  to  the  real  and  wide  difference 
in  political  opinions  between  the  honorable  gentleman  and  myself. 
On  my  part,  I  look  upon  all  these  objects  as  connected  with  the  com 
mon  good,ffairly'embraced  in  its  objects  and  its  terms;  he,  on  the  con 
trary,  deems  them  all,  if  good  at  all,  only  local  good.  This  is  our 
difference.  The  interrogatory  which  he  proceeded  to  put  at  once  ex 
plains  this  difference.  "What  interest,"  asks  he,  "has  South  Caro 
lina  in  a  canal  in  Ohio  ?"  Sir,  this  very  question  is  full  of  significance. 
It  developes  the  gentleman's  whole  political  system;  and  its  answer 
expounds  mine.  Here  we  differ  toto  calo.  I  look  upon  a  road  over 
the  Alleghany,  a  canal  round  the  falls  of  the  Ohio,  or  a  canal  or  rail 
way  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  western  waters,  as  being  objects  large 
and  extensive  enough  to  be  fairly  said  to  be  for  the  common  benefit. 
The  gentleman  thinks  otherwise,  and  this  is  the  key  to  open  his  con» 
struction  of  the  powers  of  the  government.  He  may  well  ask,  upon 
his  system,  What  interest  has  South  Carolina  in  a  canal  in  Ohio  ; 
On  that  system,  it  is  true,  she  has  no  interest.  On  that  system,  Ohio 
and  Carolina  are  different  governments  and  different  countries,  con» 
nected  here,  it  is  true,  by  some  slight  and  ill-defined  bond  of  union, 
but  in  all  main  respects  separate  and  diverse.  On  that  system,  Caro 
lina  has  no  more  interest  in  a  canal  in  Ohio  than  in  Mexico.  The 
gentleman,  therefore,  only  follows  out  his  own  principles;  he  does  no 
more  than  arrive  at  the  natural  conclusions  of  his  own  doctrines  ;  he 
only  announces  the  true  results  of  that  creed  which  he  has  adopted 
himself,  and  would  persuade  others  to  adopt,  when  he  thus  declares 
that  South  Carolina  has  no  interest  in  a  public  work  in  Ohio.  Sir,  we 
narrow-minded  people  of  New  England  do  not  reason  thus.  Our  no- 
tion  of  things  is  entirely  different.  We  look  upon  the  states,  not  as 
separated,  but  as  united.  We  love  to  dwell  on  that  Union,  and  on  the 
mutual  happiness  which  it  has  so  much  promoted,  and  the  common  re« 
nown  which  it  has  so  greatly  contributed  to  acquire.  In  our  contem. 
plation,  Carolina  and  Ohio  are  parts  of  the  same  country — states  united 
under  the  same  general  government,  having  interests  comrrjon,  associ^ 
ated,  intermingled.  In  whatever  is  within  the  proper  sphere  of  the  con- 
stitutional  power  of  this  government,  we  look  upon  the  states  as  one. 
WTe  do  not  impose  geographical  limits  to  our  patriotic  feeling  or  re- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  239 

gard;  we  do  not  follow  rivers,  and  mountains,  and  lines  of  latitude,  to 
find  boundaries  beyond  which  public  improvements  do  not  benefit  us. 
We,  who  come  here  as  agents  and  representatives  of  those  narrow- 
minded  and  selfish  men  of  New  England,  consider  ourselves  as  bound 
to  regard,  with  equal  eye,  the  good  of  the  whole,  in  whatever  is  within 
our  power  of  legislation.  Sir,  if  a  railroad  or  a  canal,  beginning  in 
South  Carolina,  and  ending  in  South  Carolina,  appeared  to  me  to  be 
of  national  importance  and  national  magnitude,  believing  as  I  do  thai 
the  power  of  government  extends  to  the  encouragement  of  works  of 
that  description,  if  I  were  to  stand  up  here  and  ask,  "What  interest 
has  Massachusetts  in  a  railroad  in  South  Carolina  ?"  I  should  not  be 
willing  to  face  my  constituents.  These  same  narrow-minded  men 
would  tell  me  that  they  had  sent  me  to  act  for  the  whole  country,  and 
that  one  who  possessed  too  little  comprehension,  either  of  intellect  or 
feeling, — one  who  was  not  large  enough,  in  mind  and  heart,  to  em 
brace  the  whole, — was  not  fit  to  be  intrusted  with  the  interest  of  any 
part.  Sir,  I  do  not  desire  to  enlarge  the  powers  of  the  government 
by  unjustifiable  construction,  nor  to  exercise  any  not  within  a  fair  inter 
pretation.  But  when  it  is  believed  that  a  power  does  exist,  then  it  is, 
in  my  judgment,  to  be  exercised  for  the  general  benefit  of  the  whole  ; 
so  far  as  respects  the  exercise  of  such  a  power,  the  states  are  one.  It 
was  the  very  object  of  the  constitution  to  create  unity  of  interests  to 
the  extent  of  the  powers  of  the  general  government.  In  war  and 
peace  we  are  one;  in  commerce  one;  because  the  authority  of  the  gen 
eral  government  reaches  to  war  and  peace,  and  to  the  regulation  of 
commerce.  I  have  never  seen  any  more  difficulty  in  erecting  light 
houses  on  the  lakes  than  on  the  ocean,  in  improving  the  harbors  of 
inland  seas,  than  if  they  were  within  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide  ;  or 
of  removing  obstructions  in  the  vast  streams  of  the  west,  more  than 
in  any  work  to  facilitate  commerce  on  the  Atlantic  coast.  If  there  be 
power  for  one,  there  is  power  also  for  the  other;  and  they  are  all  and 
equally  for  the  country. 

There  are  other  objects,  apparently  more  local,  or  the  benefit  of 
which  is  less  general,  towards  which,  nevertheless,  I  have  concurred 
with  others  to  give  aid  by  donations  of  land.  It  is  proposed  to  con 
struct  a  road  in  or  through  one  of  the  new  states  in  which  this  govern 
ment  possesses  large  quantities  of  land.  Have  the  United  States  no 
right,  as  a  great  and  untaxed  proprietor — are  they  under  no  obligation 
— to  contribute  to  an  object  thus  calculated  to  promote  the  common 
good  of  all  the  proprietors,  themselves  included  ?  And  even  with  re 
spect  to  education,  which  is  the  extreme  case,  let  the  question  be  con 
sidered.  In  the  first  place,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  made  matter  of 
compact  with  these  states  that  they-  should  do  their  part  to  promote 
education.  In  the  next  place,  our  whole  system  of  land  laws  proceeds 
on  the  idea  that  education  is  for  the  common  good  ;  because,  in  every 
division,  a  certain  portion  is  uniformly  reserved  and  appropriated  for 


240  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

the  use  of  schools.  And,  finally,  have  not  these  new  states  singularly 
strong  claims,  founded  on  the  ground  already  stated,  that  the  govern 
ment  is  a  great  untaxed  proprietor  in  the  ownership  of  the  soil  ?  It  is 
a  consideration  of  great  importance  that  probably  there  is  in  no  part 
of  the  country,  or  of  the  world,  so  great  a  call  for  the  means  of  edu 
cation  as  in  those  new  states,  owing  to  the  vast  number  of  persons 
within  those  ages  in  which  education  and  instruction  are  usually  re 
ceived,  if  received  at  all.  This  is  the  natural  consequence  of  recency 
of  settlement  and  rapid  increase.  The  census  of  these  states  shows 
how  great  a  proportion  of  the  whole  population  occupies  the  classes 
between  infancy  and  manhood.  These  are  the  wide  fields,  and  here 
is  the  deep  and  quick  soil  for  the  seeds  of  knowledge  and  virtue  ;  and 
this  is  the  favored  season,  the  spring  time  for  sowing  them.  Let  them 
be  disseminated  without  stint.  Let  them  be  scattered  with  a  bounti 
ful  broadcast.  Whatever  the  government  can  fairly  do  towards  these 
objects,  in  my  opinion,  ought  to  be  done. 

These,  sir,  are  the  grounds,  succinctly  stated,  on  which  my  votes 
for  grants  of  lands  for  particular  objects  rest,  while  I  maintain,  at  the 
same  time,  that  it  is  all  a  common  fund,  for  the  common  benefit.  And 
reasons  like  these,  I  presume,  have  influenced  the  votes  of  other  gen 
tlemen  from  New  England.  Those  who  have  a  different  view  of  the 
powers  of  the  government,  of  course,  come  to  different  conclusions 
on  these  as  on  other  questions.  I  observed,  when  speaking  on  this 
subject  before,  that  if  we  looked  to  any  measure,  whether  for  a  road, 
a  canal,  or  anything  else  intended  for  the  improvement  of  the  west,  it 
would  be  found,  that  if  the  New  England  ayes  were  struck  out  of  the 
list  of  votes,  the  southern  noes  would  always  have  rejected  the  meas 
ure.  The  truth  of  this  has  not  been  denied,  and  cannot  be  denied. 
In  stating  this,  I  thought  it  just  to  ascribe  it  to  the  constitutional 
scruples  of  the  south,  rather  than  to  any  other  less  favorable  or  less 
charitable  cause.  But  no  sooner  had  I  done  this,  than  the  honor 
able  gentleman  asks  if  I  reproach  him  and  his  friends  with  their  con 
stitutional  scruples.  Sir,  I  reproach  nobody.  I  stated  a  fact,  and 
gave  the  most  respectful  reason  for  it  that  occurred  to  me.  The  gen 
tleman  cannot  deny  the  fact — he  may,  if  he  choose,  disclaim  the  rea 
son.  It  is  not  long  since  I  had  occasion,  in  presenting  a  petition  from 
his  own  state,  to  account  for  its  being  intrusted  to  my  hands  by  saying, 
that  the  constitutional  opinions  of  the  gentleman  and  his  worthy  col 
league  prevented  them  from  supporting  it.  Sir,  did  I  state  this  as  a 
matter  of  reproach  ?  Far  from  it.  Did  I  attempt  to  find  any  other 
cause  than  an  honest  one  for  these  scruples  ?  Sir,  I  did  not.  It  did 
not  become  me  to  doubt,  nor  to  insinuate  that  the  gentleman  had 
either  changed  his  sentiments,  or  that  he  had  made  up  a  set  of  consti 
tutional  opinions,  accommodated  to  any  particular  combination  of  po 
litical  occurrences.  Had  I  done  so,  I  should  have  felt,  that  while  I 
was  entitled  to  little  respect  in  thus  questioning  other  people's  motives, 
I  justified  the  whole  world  in  suspecting  my  own. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  241 

But  how  has  the  gentleman  returned  this  respect  for  others'  opinions  ? 
His  own  candor  and  justice,  how  have  they  been  exhibited  towards  the 
motives  of  others,  while  he  has  been  at  so  much  pains  to  maintain  — 
what  nobody  has  disputed — the  purity  of  his  own?  Why,  sir,  he  has 
asked,  when,  and  how,  and  why  New  England  votes  were  found  going 
for  measures  favorable  to  the  West;  he  has  demanded  to  be  informed 
whether  all  this  did  not  begin  in  1825,  and  while  the  election  of 
President  was  still  pending.  Sir,  to  these  questions,  retort  would  be 
justified;  and  it  is  both  cogent  and  at  hand.  Nevertheless,  I  will 
answer  the  inquiry  not  by  retort,  but  by  facts.  I  will  tell  the  gentle 
man  when,  and  how,  and  why  New  England  has  supported  measures 
favorable  to  the  West.  I  have  already  referred  to  the  early  history  of 
the  government — to  the  first  acquisition  of  the  lands — to  the  original 
laws  for  disposing  of  them  and  for  governing  the  territories  where  they 
lie;  and  have  shown  the  influence  of  New  England  men  and  New  Eng 
land  principles  in  all  these  leading  measures.  I  should  not  be  pardoned 
where  I  to  go  over  that  ground  again.  Coming  to  more  recent  times, 
and  to  measures  of  a  less  general  character,  I  have  endeavored  to  prove 
that  everything  of  this  kind  designed  for  western  improvement  has 
depended  on  the  votes  of  New  England.  All  this  is  true  beyond  the 
power  of  contradiction. 

And  now,  sir,  there  are  two  measures  to  which  I  will  refer,  not  so 
ancient  as  to  belong  to  the  early  history  of  the  public  lands,  and  not 
so  recent  as  to  be  on  this  side  of  the  period  when  the  gentleman 
charitably  imagines  a  new  direction  may  have  been  given  to  New 
England  feeling  and  New  England  votes.  These  measures,  and  the 
New  England  votes  in  support  of  them,  may  be  taken  as  samples  and 
specimens  of  all  the  rest.  In  1820  (observe,  Mr.  President,  in  1820), 
the  people  of  the  West  besought  Congress  for  a  reduction  in  the  price  of 
lands.  In  favor  of  that  reduction,  New  England,  with  a  delegation  of 
forty  members  in  the  other  house,  gave  thirty-three  votes,  and  only  one 
against  it.  The  four  Southern  States,  with  fifty  members,  gave  thirty-two 
votes  for  it,  and  seven  against  it.  Again,  in  1821  (observe,  again,  sir, 
the  time),  the  law  passed  for  the  relief  of  the  purchasers  of  the  public 
lands.  This  was  a  measure  of  vital  importance  to  the  West,  and  more 
especially  to  the  Southwest.  It  authorized  the  relinquishment  of  con 
tracts  for  lands,  which  had  been  entered  into  at  high  prices,  and  a  reduc 
tion,  in  other  esses,  of  not  less  than  37^  per  cent,  on  the  purchase 
money.  Many  millions  of  dollars,  six  or  seven  I  believe,  at  least — 
probably  much  more — were  relinquished  by  this  law.  On  this  bill  New 
England,  with  her  forty  members,  gave  more  affirmative  votes  than 
the  four  Southern  States  with  their  fifty-two  or  three  members. 
These  two  are  far  the  most  important  measures  respecticg  the 
public  lands  which  have  been  adopted  within  the  last  twenty  years. 
Yhey  took  place  in  1820  and  1821.  That  is  the  time  when.  And  as  to 
the  manner  how,  the  gentleman  already  sees  that  it  was  by  voting, 


242  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

in  solid  column,  for  the  required  relief;  and  lastly  as  to  the  cause  why, 
I  tell  the  gentlemen,  it  was  because  the  members  from  New  England 
thought  the  measures  just  and  salutary;  because  they  entertained 
towards  the  West  neither  envy,  hatred,  nor  malice;  because  they 
deemed  it  becoming  them,  as  just  and  enlightened  public  men,  to 
meet  the  exigency  which  had  arisen  in  the  West  with  the  appropriate 
measure  of  relief;  because  they  felt  it  due  to  their  own  characters,  and 
the  characters  of  their  New  England  predecessors  in  this  government, 
to  act  towards  the  new  states  in  the  spirit  of  a  liberal,  patronizing, 
magnanimous  policy.  So  much,  sir,  for  the  cause  why;  and  I  hope 
that  by  this  time,  sir,  the  honorable  gentleman  is  satisfied;  if  not,  I 
do  not  know  when,  or  how,  or  why,  he  ever  will  be. 

Having  recurred  to  these  two  important  measures,  in  answer  to  the 
gentleman's  inquiries,  I  must  now  beg  permission  to  go  back  to  a 
period  still  something  earlier,  for  the  purpose  still  further  of  showing 
how  much,  or  rather  how  little,  reason  there  is  for  the  gentleman's  in 
sinuation  that  political  hopes,  or  fears,  or  party  associations,  were  the 
grounds  of  these  New  England  votes.  And  after  what  has  been  said, 
I  hope  it  may  be  forgiven  me  if  I  allude  to  some  political  opinions  and 
votes  of  my  own,  of  very  little  public  importance,  certainly,  but 
which,  from  the  time  at  which  they  were  given  and  expressed,  may 
pass  for  good  witnesses  on  this  occasion. 

This  government,  Mr.  President,  from  its  origin  to  the  peace  of 
1815,  had  been  too  much  engrossed  with  various  other  important  con 
cerns  to  be  able  to  turn  its  thoughts  inward,  and  look  to  the  develop 
ment  of  its  vast  internal  resources.  In  the  early  part  of  President 
Washington's  administration,  it  was  fully  occupied  with  organizing  the 
government,  providing  for  the  public  debt,  defending  the  frontiers, 
and  maintaining  domestic  peace.  Before  the  termination  of  that  ad 
ministration,  the  fires  of  the  French  revolution  blazed  forth,  as  from  a 
new-opened  volcano,  and  the  whole  breadth  of  the  ocean  did  not  en 
tirely  secure  us  from  its  effects.  The  smoke  and  the  cinders  reached 
us,  though  not  the  burning  lava.  Difficult  and  agitating  questions, 
embarrassing  to  government,  and  dividing  public  opinion,  sprung  out 
of  the  new  state  of  our  foreign  relations,  and  were  succeeded  by 
others,  and  yet  again  by  others,  equally  embarrassing,  and  equally 
exciting  division  and  discord,  through  the  long  series  of  twenty  years, 
till  they  finally  issued  in  the  war  with  England.  Down  to  the  close 
of  that  war,  no  distinct,  marked,  and  deliberate  attention  had  been 
given,  or  could  have  been  given,  to  the  internal  condition  of  the  coun 
try,  its  capacities  of  improvement,  or  the  constitutional  power  of  the 
government,  in  regard  to  objects  connected  with  such  improvement. 

The  peace,  Mr.  President,  brought  about  an  entirely  new  and  a 
most  interesting  state  of  things;  it  opened  to  us  other  prospects,  and 
suggested  other  duties;  we  ourselves  were  changed,  and  the  whole 
world  was  changed.  The  pacification  of  Europe,  after  June,  1815, 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  243 

assumed  a  firm  and  permanent  aspect.  The  nations  evidently  mani 
fested  that  they  were  disposed  for  peace;  some  agitation  of  the  waves 
might  be  expected,  even  after  the  storm  had  subsided;  but  the  ten 
dency  was,  strongly  and  rapidly,  towards  settled  repose. 

It  so  happened,  sir,  that  I  was  at  that  time  a  member  of  Congress,  and, 
like  others,  naturally  turned  my  attention  to  the  contemplation  of  the 
newly-altered  condition  of  the  country,  and  of  the  world.  It  appeared 
plainly  enough  to  me,  as  well  as  to  wiser  and  more  experienced  men, 
that  the  policy  of  the  government  would  necessarily  take  a  start  in  a 
new  direction;  because  new  directions  would  necessarily  be  given  to 
the  pursuits  and  occupations  of  the  people.  We  had  pushed  our  com 
merce  far  and  fast,  under  the  advantage  of  a  neutral  flag.  But  there 
were  now  no  longer  flags,  either  neutral  or  belligerent.  The  harvest 
of  neutrality  had  been  great,  but  we  had  gathered  it  all.  With  the 
peace  of  Europe,  it  was  obvious  there  would  spring  up,  in  her  circle  of 
nations,  a  revived  and  invigorated  spirit  of  trade,  and  a  new  activity 
in  all  the  business  and  objects  of  civilized  life.  Hereafter,  our  com 
mercial  gains. were  to  be  earned  only  by  success  in  a  close  and  intense 
competition.  Other  nations  would  produce  for  themselves,  and  carry 
for  themselves,  and  manufacture  for  themselves,  to  the  full  extent  of 
their  abilities.  The  crops  of  our  plains  would  no  longer  sustain  Euro 
pean  armies,  nor  our  ships  longer  supply  those  whom  war  had  ren 
dered  unable  to  supply  themselves.  It  was  obvious,  that,  under 
these  circumstances,  the  country  would  begin  to  survey  itself,  and  to 
estimate  its  own  capacity  of  improvement.  And  this  improvement, 
how  was  it  to  be  accomplished,  and  who  was  to  accomplish  it? 

We  were  ten  or  twelve  millions  of  people,  spread  over  almost  half 
a  world.  We  were  twenty-four  states,  some  stretching  along  the 
same  seaboard,  some  along  the  same  line  of  inland  frontier,  and 
others  on  opposite  banks  of  the  same  vast  rivers.  Two  considera 
tions  at  once  presented  themselves,  in  looking  at  this  state  of  things, 
with  great  force.  One  was,  that  that  great  branch  of  improvement, 
which  consisted  in  furnishing  new  facilities  of  intercourse,  necessarily 
ran  into  different  states,  in  every  leading  instance,  and  would  benefit 
the  citizens  of  all  such  states.  No  one  state,  therefore,  in  such  cases, 
would  assume  the  whole  expense,  nor  was  the  co-operation  of  several 
states  to  be  expected.  Take  the  instance  of  the  Delaware  Breakwater. 
It  will  cost  several  millions  of  money.  Would  Pennsylvania  alone 
have  ever  constructed  it  ?  Certainly  never,  while  this  Union  lasts, 
because  it  is  not  for  her  sole  benefit,  Would  Pennsylvania,  New 
Jersey,  and  Delaware  have  united  to  accomplish  it,  at  their  joint  ex 
pense  ?  Certainly  not,  for  the  same  reason.  It  could  not  be  done, 
therefore,  but  by  the  general  government.  The  same  may  be  said  of 
the  large  inland  undertakings,  except  that,  in  them,  government,  in 
stead  of  bearing  the  whole  expense,  co-operates  with  others  who  bear 
a  part.  The  other  consideration  is,  that  the  United  States  have  the 


244  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

means.  They  enjoy  the  revenues  derived  from  commerce,  and  the 
states  have  no  abundant  and  easy  sources  of  public  income.  The 
custom  houses  fill  the  general  treasury,  while  the  states  have  scanty 
resources,  except  by  resort  to  heavy  direct  taxes. 

Under  this  view  of  things,  I  thought  it  necessary  to  settle,  at  least  for 
myself,  some  definite  notions,  with  respect  to  the  powers  of  govern 
ment,  in  regard  to  internal  affairs.  It  may  not  savor  too  much  of  self-com 
mendation  to  remark,  that,  with  this  object,  I  considered  the  constitu 
tion,  its  judicial  construction,  its  contemporaneous  exposition,  and  the 
whole  history  of  the  legislation  of  Congress  under  it ;  and  I  arrived  at  the 
conclusion  that  government  has  power  to  accomplish  sundry  objects,  or 
aid  in  their  accomplishments,  which  are  now  commonly  spoken  of  as  In 
ternal  Improvements.  That  conclusion,  sir,  may  have  been  right,  or  it 
may  have  been  wrong  I  am  not  about  to  argue  the  grounds  of  it  at  large. 
I  say  only  that  it  adopted,  and  acted  on,  even  so  early  as  in  1816.  Yes, 
Mr.  President,  I  made  up  my  opinion,  and  determined  on  my  intended 
course  of  political  conduct  on  these  subjects,  in  the  I4th  Congress,  in 
1816.  And  now,  Mr.  President,  I  have  further  to  say,  that  I  made  up 
these  opinions,  and  entered  on  this  course  of  political  conduct,  Tencro 
duce.  Yes,  sir,  I  pursued,  in  all  this,  a  South  Carolina  track.  On  the 
doctrines  of  internal  improvement,  South  Carolina,  as  she  was  then 
represented  in  the  other  house,  set  forth,  in  1816,  under  a  fresh  and 
leading  breeze;  and  I  was  among  the  followers.  But  if  my  leader 
sees  new  lights,  and  turns  a  sharp  corner,  unless  I  see  new  lights 
also,  I  keep  straight  on  in  the  same  path.  I  repeat,  that  leading  gen 
tlemen  from  South  Carolina  were  first  and  foremost  in  behalf  of  the 
doctrines  of  internal  improvements,  when  those  doctrines  first  came 
to  be  considered  and  acted  upon  in  Congress.  The  debate  on  the 
bank  question,  on  the  tariff  of  1816,  and  on  the  direct  tax  will  show 
who  was  who,  and  what  was  what,  at  that  time.  The  tariff  of  1816, 
one  of  the  plain  cases  of  oppression  and  usurpation,  from  which,  if 
the  government  does  not  recede,  individual  states  may  justly  secede 
from  the  government,  is,  sir,  in  truth,  a  South  Carolina  tariff,  sup 
ported  by  South  Carolina  votes.  But  for  those  votes,  it  could  not 
have  passed  in  the  form  in  which  it  did  pass;  whereas,  if  it  had  de 
pended  on  Massachusetts  votes,  it  would  have  been  lost.  Does  not 
the  honorable  gentleman  well  know  all  this?  There  are  certainly 
those  who  do  full  well  know  it  all.  I  do  not  say  this  to  reproach 
South  Carolina;  I  only  state  the  fact,  and  I  think  it  will  appear  to  be 
true,  that  among  the  earliest  and  boldest  advocates  of  the  tariff,  as  a 
measure  of  protection,  and  on  the  express  ground  of  protection,  were 
leading  gentlemen  of  South  Carolina  in  Congress.  I  did  not  then,  and 
cannot  now,  understand  their  language  in  any  other  sense.  While  this 
tariff  of  1816  was  under  discussion  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
an  honorable  gentleman  from  Georgia,  now  of  this  house  (Mr.  For- 
syth),  moved  to  reduce  the  proposed  duty  on  cotton.  He  failed  by 


DANIEL    WEBSTER,  245 

four  votes,  South  Carolina  giving  three  votes  (enough  to  have  turned 
the  scale)  against  his  motion.  The  act,  sir,  then  passed,  and  received 
on  its  passage  the  support  of  a  majority  of  the  representatives  of  South 
Carolina  present  and  voting.  This  act  is  the  first,  in  the  order  of 
those  now  denounced  as  plain  usurpations.  We  see  it  daily  in  the  list 
by  the  side  of  those  of  1824  and  1828,  as  a  case  of  manifest  oppres 
sion,  justifying  dis-union.  I  put  it  home  to  the  honorable  member 
from  South  Carolina,  that  his  own  state  was  not  only  "art  and  part" 
in  this  measure,  but  the  causa  causans.  Without  her  aid,  this  seminal 
principle  of  mischief,  this  root  of  upas,  could  not  have  been  planted. 
I  have  already  said — and  it  is  true — that  this  act  proceeded  on  the 
ground  of  protection.  It  interfered  directly  with  existing  interests  of 
great  value  and  amount.  It  cut  up  the  Calcutta  cotton  trade  by  the 
roots.  But  it  passed,  nevertheless,  and  it  passed  on  the  principle  of 
protecting  manufacturers,  on  the  principle  against  free  trade,  on  the 
principle  opposed  to  that  which  lets  us  alone. 

Such,  Mr.  President,  were  the  opinions  of  important  and  leading 
gentlemen  of  South  Carolina,  on  the  subject  of  internal  improvement, 
in  1816.  I  went  out  of  Congress  the  next  year,  and  returning  again 
in  1823,  thought  I  found  South  Carolina  where  I  had  left  her.  I  really 
supposed  that  all  things  remained  as  they  were,  and  that  the  South 
Carolina  doctrine  of  internal  improvements  would  be  defended  by  the 
same  eloquent  voices  and  the  same  strong  arms,  as  formerly.  In  the 
lapse  of  these  six  years,  it  is  true,  political  associations  had  assumed 
a  new  aspect  and  new  divisions.  A  party  had  arisen  in  the  south, 
hostile  to  the  doctrine  of  internal  improvements,  and  had  vigorously 
attacked  that  doctrine.  Anti-consolidation  was  the  flag  under  which 
this  party  fought,  and  its  supporters  inveighed  against  internal  im 
provements,  much  after  the  same  manner  in  which  the  honorable  gen 
tleman  has  now  inveighed  against  them,  as  part  and  parcel  of  the 
system  of  consolidation. 

Whether  this  party  arose  in  South  Carolina  herself,  or  in  her  neigh 
borhood,  is  more  than  I  know.  I  think  the  latter.  However  that 
may  have  been,  there  were  those  found  in  South  Carolina  ready  to 
make  war  upon  it,  and  who  did  make  intrepid  war  upon  it.  Names 
being  regarded  as  things,  in  such  controversies,  they  bestowed  on  the 
antMmprovement  gentlemen  the  appellation  of  radicals.  Yes,  sir, 
the  name  of  radicals,  as  a  term  of  distinction,  applicable  and  applied 
to  those  who  denied  the  liberal  doctrines  of  internal  improvements, 
originated,  according  to  the  best  of  my  recollection,  somewhere  be 
tween  North  Carolina  and  Georgia.  Well,  sir,  those  mischievous 
radicals  were  to  be  put  down,  and  the  strong  arm  of  South  Carolina 
was  stretched  out  to  put  them  down.  About  this  time,  sir,  I  returned 
to  Congress.  The  battle  with  the  radicals  had  been  fought,  and  our 
South  Carolina  champions  of  the  doctrines  of  internal  improvement 
had  nobly  maintained  their  ground,  and  were  understood  to  have 


246  AMERICAN  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

achieved  a  victory.  They  had  driven  back  the  enemy  with  discomfit 
ure;  a  thing,  by  the  way,  sir,  which  is  not  always  performed  when  it 
is  promised  A  gentleman,  to  whom  I  have  already  referred  in  this 
debate,  had  come  into  Congress,  during  my  absence  from  it,  from 
South  Carolina,  and  had  brought  with  him  a  high  reputation  for 
ability.  He  came  from  a  school  with  which  we  had  been  acquainted, 
et  noscitur  a  sociis.  I  hold  in  my  hand,  sir,  a  printed  speech  of  this 
distinguished  gentleman  (Mr.  McDuffie)  "  on  internal  improvements," 
delivered  about  the  period  to  which  I  now  refer,  and  printed  with  a 
few  introductory  remarks  upon  consolidation;  in  which,  sir,  I  think 
he  quite  consolidated  the  arguments  of  his  opponents,  the  radicals,  if 
to  crush  be  to  consolidate.  I  give  you  a  short  but  substantive  quota 
tion  from  these  remarks.  He  is  speaking  of  a  pamphlet,  then  recently 
published,  entitled  "  Consolidation;"  and  having  alluded  to  the  ques 
tion  of  rechartering  the  former  bank  of  the  United  States,  he  says, 
"  Moreover,  in  the  early  history  of  parties,  and  when  Mr.  Crawford 
advocated  the  renewal  of  the  old  charter,  it  was  considered  a  federal 
measure;  which  internal  improvement  never  was,  as  this  author  erro 
neously  states.  This  latter  measure  originated  in  the  administration 
of  Mr.  Jefferson,  with  the  appropriation  for  the  Cumberland  road; 
and  was  first  proposed,  as  a  system,  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  carried 
through  the  House  of  Representatives  by  a  large  majority  of  the  re 
publicans,  including  almost  every  one  of  the  leading  men  who  carried 
us  through  the  late  war." 

So  then,  internal  improvement  is  not  one  of  the  federal  heresies. 

One  paragraph  more,  sir. 

"The  author  in  question,  not  content  with  denouncing  as  federal 
ists  General  Jackson,  Mr.  Adams,  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  the  majority  of 
the  South  Carolina  delegation  in  Congress,  modestly  extends  the  de 
nunciation  to  Mr.  Monroe  and  the  whole  republican  party.  Here  are 
his  words:  '  During  the  administration  of  Mr.  Monroe,  much  has 
r>assed  which  the  republican  party  would  be  glad  to  approve,  if  they 
could!  But  the  principal  feature,  and  that  which  has  chiefly  elicited 
these  observations,  is  the  renewal  of  the  system  of  internal  improve 
ments.'  Now,  this  measure  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  115  to  86,  of  a 
republican  Congress,  and  sanctioned  by  a  republican  president. 
Who,  then,  is  this  author,  who  assumes  the  high  prerogative  of  de 
nouncing,  in  the  name  of  the  republican  party,  the  republican  admin 
istration  of  the  country — a  denunciation  including  within  its  s\veep 
Calhoun,  Lowndes,  and  Cheves;  men  who  will  be  regarded  as  the 
brightest  ornaments  of  South  Carolina,  and  the  strongest  pillars  of 
the  republican  party,  as  long  as  the  late  war  shall  be  remembered,  and 
talents  and  patriotism  shall  be  regarded  as  the  proper  objects  of  the 
admiration  and  gratitude  of  a  free  people!" 

Such  are  the  opinions,  sir,  which  were  maintained  by  South  Caro 
lina  gentlemen  in  the  House  of  Representatives  on  the  subject  of  in- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  247 

ternal  improvement,  when  I  took  my  seat  there  as  a  member  from 
Massachusetts,  in  1823.  But  this  is  not  all;  we  had  a  bill  before  us, 
and  passed  it  in  that  house,  entitled  "  An  act  to  procure  the  necessary 
surveys,  plans,  and  estimates  upon  the  subject  of  roads  and  canals." 
It  authorizes  the  president  to  cause  surveys  and  estimates  to  be  made 
of  the  routes  of  such  roads  and  canals  as  he  might  deem  of  national 
importance  in  a  commercial  or  military  point  of  view,  or  for  the  trans 
portation  of  the  mail;  and  appropriated  thirty  thousand  dollars  out  of 
the  treasury  to  defray  the  expense.  This  act,  though  preliminary  in 
its  nature,  covered  the  whole  ground.  It  took  for  granted  the  com 
plete  power  of  internal  improvement,  as  far  as  any  of  its  advocates 
had  ever  contended  for  it.  Having  passed  the  other  house,  the  bill 
came  up  to  the  Senate,  and  was  here  considered  and  debated  in  April, 
1824.  The  honorable  member  from  South  Carolina  was  a  member  of 
the  Senate  at  that  time.  While  the  bill  was  under  consideration  here, 
a.  motion  was  made  to  add  the  following  proviso: — 

"Provided,  That  nothing  herein  contained  shall  be  construed  to 
affirm  or  admit  a  power  in  Congress,  on  their  own  authority,  to  make 
roads  or  canals  within  any  of  the  states  of  the  Union." 

,  The  yeas  and  nays  were  taken  on  this  proviso,  and  the  honorable 
member  voted  in  the  negative.     The  proviso  failed. 

A  motion  was  then  made  to  add  this  provision,  viz.: — 

"  Provided,  That  the  faith  of  the  United  States  is  hereby  pledged, 
that  no  money  shall  ever  be  expended  for  roads  or  canals,  except  it 
shall  be  among  the  several  states,  and  in  the  same  proportion  as 
direct  taxes  are  laid  and  assessed  by  the  provisions  of  the  constitu 
tion." 

The  honorable  member  voted  against  this  proviso  also,  and  it 
failed. 

The  bill  was  then  put  on  its  passage,  and  the  honorable  member 
voted  for  it,  and  it  passed,  and  became  a  law. 

Now,  it  strikes  me,  sir,  that  there  is  no  maintaining  these  votes  but 
upon  the  power  of  internal  improvement,  in  its  broadest  sense.  In 
truth,  these  bills  for  surveys  and  estimates  have  always  been  con 
sidered  as  test  questions.  They  show  who  is  for  and  who  against  in 
ternal  improvement.  This  law  itself  went  the  whole  length,  and 
assumed  the  full  and  complete  power.  The  gentleman's  votes  sus 
tained  that  power,  in  every  form  in  which  the  various  propositions  to 
amend  presented  it.  He  went  for  the  entire  and  unrestrained  au 
thority,  without  consulting  the  states,  and  without  agreeing  to  any 
proportionate  distribution.  And  now,  suffer  me  to  remind  you,  Mr. 
President,  that  it  is  this  very  same  power,  thus  sanctioned,  in  every 
form,  by  the  gentleman's  own  opinion,  that  is  so  plain  and  manifest 
a  usurpation,  that  the  state  of  South  Carolina  is  supposed  to  be  justi 
fied  in  refusing  submission  to  any  laws  carrying  the  power  into  effect. 
Truly,  sir,  is  not  this  a  little  too  hard?  May  we  not  crave  some 
A.  p.-y. 


248  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

mercy,  under  favor  and  protection  of  the  gentleman's  own  authority  ? 
Admitting  that  a  road  or  a  canal  must  be  written  down  flat  usurpation 
as  ever  was  committed,  may  we  find  no  mitigation  in  our  respect  for 
his  place,  and  his  vote,  as  one  that  knows  the  law  ? 

The  tariff  which  South  Carolina  had  an  efficient  hand  in  establishing 
in  1816,  and  this  asserted  power  of  internal  improvement, — advanced 
by  her  in  the  same  year,  and,  as  we  have  now  seen,  approved  and 
sanctioned  by  her  representatives  in  1824,— these  two  measures  are  the 
great  grounds  on  which  she  is  now  thought  to  be  justified  in  breaking 
up  the  Union,  if  she  sees  fit  to  break  it  up. 

I  may  now  safely  say,  I  think,  that  we  have  had  the  authority  of 
leading  and  distinguished  gentlemen  from  South  Carolina  in  support 
of  the  doctrine  of  internal  improvement.  I  repeat,  that,  up  to  1824,  I, 
for  one,  followed  South  Carolina;  but  when  that  star  in  its  ascension 
veered  off  in  an  unexpected  direction,  I  relied  on  its  light  no  longer. 
[Here  the  Vice  President  said,  does  the  chair  understand  the  gentle 
man  from  Massachusetts  to  say  that  the  person  now  occupying  the 
chair  of  the  Senate  has  changed  his  opinions  on  the  subject  of  internal 
improvements  ?]  From  nothing  ever  said  to  me,  sir,  have  I  had  rea 
son  to  know  of  any  change  in  the  opinions  of  the  person  filling  the 
chair  of  the  Senate.  If  such  change  has  taken  place,  I  regret  it;  I 
speak  generally  of  the  State  of  South  Carolina.  Individuals  we  know 
there  are  who  hold  opinions  favorable  to  the  power.  An  application 
for  its  exercise  in  behalf  of  a  public  work  in  South  Carolina  itself  is 
now  pending,  I  believe,  in  the  other  house,  presented  by  members 
from  that  state. 

I  have  thus,  sir,  perhaps  not  without  some  tediousness  of  detail, 
shown  that,  if  I  am  in  error  on  the  subject  of  internal  improvements, 
how  and  in  what  company  I  fell  into  that  error.  If  I  am  wrong,  it  is 
apparent  who  misled  me. 

I  go  to  other  remarks  of  the  honorable  member — and  I  have  to  com 
plain  of  an  entire  misapprehension  of  what  I  said  on  the  subject  of  the 
national  debt — though  I  can  hardly  perceive  how  any  one  could  mis 
understand  me.  What  I  said  was,  not  that  I  wished  to  put  off  the 
payment  of  the  debt,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  I  had  always  voted  for 
every  measure  for  its  reduction,  as  uniformly  as  the  gentleman  him 
self.  He  seems  to  claim  the  exclusive  merit  of  a  disposition  to  reduce 
the  public  charge;  I  do  not  allow  it  to  him.  As  a  debt,  I  was,  I  am,  for 
paying  it;  because  it  is  a  charge  on  our  finances,  and  on  the  industry 
of  the  country.  But  I  observed  that  I  thought  I  perceived  a  morbid 
fervor  on  that  subject;  an  excessive  anxiety  to  pay  off  the  debt;  not  so 
much  because  it  is  a  debt  simply,  as  because,  while  it  lasts,  it  furnishes 
one  objection  to  disunion.  It  is  a  tie  of  common  interest  while  it 
lasts.  I  did  not  impute  such  motive  to  the  honorable  member  him 
self;  but  that  there  is  such  a  feeling  in  existence  I  have  not  a  particle 
of  doubt.  The  most  I  said  was,  that  if  one  effect  of  the  debt  was  to 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  249 

strengthen  our  Union,  that  effect  itself  was  not  regretted  by  me,  how 
ever  much  others  might  regret  it.  The  gentleman  has  not  seen  how 
to  reply  to  this  otherwise  than  by  supposing  me  to  have  advanced  the 
doctrine  that  a  national  debt  is  a  national  blessing.  Others,  I  must 
hope,  will  find  less  difficulty  in  understanding  me.  I  distinctly  and 
pointedly  cautioned  the  honorable  member  not  to  understand  me  as 
expressing  an  opinion  favorable  to  the  continuance  of  the  debt.  I 
repeated  this  caution,  and  repeated  it 'more  than  once — but  it  was 
thrown  away. 

On  yet  another  point  I  was  still  more  unaccountably  misunderstood. 
The  gentleman  had  harangued  against  ''consolidation."  I  told  him, 
in  reply,  that  there  was  one  kind  of  consolidation  to  which  I  was  at 
tached,  and  that  was,  the  consolidation  of  our  Union;  and  that  this  was 
precisely  that  consolidation  to  which  I  feared  others  were  not  attached; 
that  such  consolidation  was  the  very  end  of  the  constitution — the  lead 
ing  object,  as  they  had  informed  us  themselves,  which  its  framers  had 
kept  in  view.  I  turned  to  their  communication,  and  read  their  very 
words, — "the  consolidation  of  the  Union," — and  expressed  my  devotion 
to  this  sort  of  consolidation.  I  said  in  terms  that  I  wished  not,  in  the 
slightest  degree,  to  augment  the  powers  of  this  government;  that  my 
object  was  to  preserve,  not  to  enlarge;  and  that,  by  consolidating  the 
Union,  I  understood  no  more  than  the  strengthening  of  the  Union 
and  perpetuating  it.  Having  been  thus  explicit;  having  thus  read,  from 
the  printed  book,  the  precise  words  which  I  adopted,  as  expressing 
my  own  sentiments,  it  passes  comprehension,  how  any  man  could 
understand  me  as  contending  for  an  extension  of  the  powers  of  the 
government,  or  for  consolidation  in  that  odious  sense  in  which  it 
means  an  accumulation,  in  the  federal  government,  of  the  power 
properly  belonging  to  the  states. 

I  repeat,  sir,  that,  in  adopting  the  sentiments  of  the  framers  of  the 
constitution,  I  read  their  language  audibly,  and  word  for  word;  and  I 
pointed  out  the  distinction,  just  as  fully  as  I  have  now  done,  between 
the  consolidation  of  the  Union  and  that  other  obnoxious  consolidation 
which  I  disclaimed,  and  yet  the  honorable  gentleman  misunderstood 
me.  The  gentleman  had  said  that  he  wished  for  no  fixed  revenue — 
not  a  shilling.  If,  by  a  word,  he  could  convert  the  Capitol  into  gold, 
he  would  not  do  it.  Why  all  this  fear  of  revenue  ?  Why,  sir,  because, 
as  the  gentleman  told  us,  it  tends  to  consolidation.  Now,  this  can 
mean  neither  more  nor  less  than  that  a  common  revenue  is  a  common 
interest,  and  that  all  common  interests  tend  to  hold  the  union  of  the 
states  together.  I  confess  I  like  that  tendency;  if  the  gentleman  dis 
likes  it,  he  is  right  in  deprecating  a  shilling's  fixed  revenue.  So  much, 
sir,  for  consolidation. 

As  well  as  I  recollect  the  course  of  his  remarks,  the  honorable 
gentleman  next  recurred  to  the  subject  of  the  tariff.  He  did  not 
doubt  the  word  must  be  of  unpleasant  sound  to  me,  and  proceeded, 


250  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

with  an  effort  neither  new  nor  attended  with  new  success,  to  involve 
me  and  my  votes  in  inconsistency  and  contradiction.  I  am  happy 
the  honorable  gentleman  has  furnished  me  an  opportunity  of  a  timely 
remark  or  two  on  that  subject.  I  was  glad  he  approached  it,  for  it 
is  a  question  I  enter  upon  without  fear  from  any  body  The  strenuous 
toil  of  the  gentleman  has  been  to  raise  an  inconsistency  between  my 
dissent  to  the  tariff  in  1824  and  my  vote  in  1828.  It  is  labor  lost.  He 
pays  undeserved  compliment  to  my  speech  in  1824;  but  this  is  to  raise 
me  high  that  my  fall,  as  he  would  have  it,  in  1828  may  be  the  more 
signal.  Sir,  there  was  no  fall  at  all.  Between  the  ground  I  stood  on 
in  1824  and  that  I  took  in  1828,  there  was  not  only  no  precipice,  but 
no  declivity.  It  was  a  change  of  position,  to  meet  new  circumstances, 
but  on  the  same  level.  A  plain  tale  explains  the  whole  matter.  In 
1816,  I  had  not  acquiesced  in  the  tariff,  then  supported  by  South 
Carolina.  To  some  parts  of  it,  especially,  I  felt  and  expressed  great 
repugnance.  I  held  the  same  opinions  in  1821,  at  the  meeting  in 
Faneuil  Hall,  to  which  the  gentleman  has  alluded.  I  said  then,  and 
say  now,  that,  as  an  original  question,  the  authority  of  Congress  to 
exercise  the  revenue  power,  with  direct  reference  to  the  protection  of 
manufactures,  is  a  questionable  authority,  far  more  questionable,  in 
my  judgment,  than  the  power  of  internal  improvements.  I  must  con 
fess,  sir,  that,  in  one  respect,  some  impression  has  been  made  on  my 
opinions  lately.  Mr.  Madison's  publication  has  put  the  power  in  a 
very  strong  light.  He  has  placed  it,  I  must  acknowledge,  upon  grounds 
of  construction  and  argument  which  seem  impregnable.  But,  even  if 
the  power  were  doubtful,  on  the  face  of  the  constitution  itself,  it  had 
been  assumed  and  asserted  in  the  first  revenue  law  ever  passed  under 
the  same  constitution;  and,  on  this  ground,  as  a  matter  settled  by 
contemporaneous  practice,  I  had  refrained  from  expressing  the  opinion 
that  the  tariff  laws  transcended  constitutional  limits,  as  the  gentleman 
supposes.  What  I  did  say  at  Faneuil  Hall,  as  far  as  I  now  remember, 
was,  that  this  was  originally  matter  of  doubtful  construction.  The 
gentleman  himself,  I  suppose,  thinks  there  is  no  doubt  about  it,  and 
that  the  laws  are  plainly  against  the  constitution-.  Mr.  Madison's 
letters,  already  referred  to,  contain,  in  my  judgment,  by  far  the  most 
able  exposition  extant  of  this  part  of  the  constitution.  He  has  satis 
fied  me,  so  far  as  the  practice  of  the  government  had  left  it  an  open 
question. 

With  a  great  majority  of  the  representatives  of  Massachusetts,  I 
voted  against  the  tariff  of  1824.  My  reasons  were  then  given,  and  I 
will  not  now  repeat  them.  But  notwithstanding  our'dissent,  the  great 
states  of  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  and  Kentucky  went  for 
the  bill,  in  almost  unbroken  column,  and  it  passed.  Congress  and 
the  President  sanctioned  it,  and  it  became  the  law  of  the  land.  What, 
then,  were  we  to  do  ?  Our  only  option  was  either  to  fall  in  with  this 
settled  course  of  public  policy,  and  to  accommodate  ourselves  to  it  as 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  251 

well  as  we  could,  or  to  embrace  the  South  Carolina  doctrine,  and  talk 
of  nullifying  the  statute  by  state  interference. 

This  last  alternative  did  not  suit  our  principles,  and  of  course,  we 
adopted  the  former.  In  1827,  the  subject  came  again  before  Con 
gress,  on  a  proposition  favorable  to  wool  and  woollens.  We  looked 
upon  the  system  of  protection  as  being  fixed  and  settled.  The  law  of 
1824  remained.  It  had  gone  into  full  operation,  and  in  regard  to 
some  objects  intended  by  it,  perhaps  most  of  them,  had  produced  all 
its  expected  effects.  No  man  proposed  to  repeal  it — no  man  attempted 
to  renew  the  general  contest  on  its  principle.  But,  owing  to  subse 
quent  and  unforeseen  occurrences,  the  benefit  intended  by  it  to  wool 
and  woollen  fabrics  had  not  been  realized.  Events,  not  known  here 
when  the  law  passed,  had  taken  place,  which  defeated  its  object  in 
that  particular  respect.  A  measure  was  accordingly  brought  forward 
to  meet  this  precise  deficiency,  to  remedy  this  particular  defect.  It 
was  limited  to  wool  and  woollens.  Was  ever  anything  more  reason 
able  ?  If  the  policy  of  the  tariff  laws  had  become  established  in  prin 
ciple  as  the  permanent  policy  of  the  government,  should  they  not  be 
revised  and  amended,  and  made  equal,  like  other  laws,  as  exigencies 
should  arise,  or  justice  require  ?  Because  we  had  doubted  about 
adopting  the  system,  were  we  to  refuse  to  cure  its  manifest  defects, 
after  it  became  adopted,  and  when  no  one  attempted  its  repeal  ?  And 
this,  sir,  is  the  inconsistency  so  much  bruited.  I  had  voted  against 
the  tariff  of  1824 — but  it  passed  ;  and  in  1827  and  1828,  I  voted  to 
amend  it  in  a  point  essential  to  the  interest  of  my  constituents. 
Where  is  the  inconsistency  ?  Could  I  do  otherwise  ? 

Sir,  does  political  consistency  consist  in  always  giving  negative 
votes  ?  Does  it  require  of  a  public  man  to  refuse  to  concur  in  amending 
laws  because  they  passed  against  his  consent  ?  Having  voted  against 
the  tariff  originally,  does  consistency  demand  that  I  should  do  all  in 
my  power  to  maintain  an  unequal  tariff,  burdensome  to  my  own  con 
stituents,  in  many  respects, — favorable  in  none?  To  consistency  of 
that  sort  I  lay  no  claim;  and  there  is  another  sort  to  which  I  lay  as 
little — and  that  is,  a  kind  of  consistency  by  which  persons  feel  them 
selves  as  much  bound  to  oppose  a  proposition  after  it  has  become  the 
law  of  the  land  as  before. 

The  bill  of  1827,  limited,  as  I  have  said,  to  the  single  object  in 
which  the  tariff  of  1824  had  manifestly  failed  in  its  effect,  passed  the 
House  of  Representatives,  but  was  lost  here.  We  had  then  the  act  of 
1828.  I  need  not  recur  to  the  history  of  a  measure  so  recent.  Its 
enemies  spiced  it  with  whatsoever  they  thought  would  render  it  distaste 
ful  ;  its  friends  took  it,  drugged  as  it  was.  Vast  amounts  of  property, 
many  millions,  had  been  invested  in  manufactures,  under  the  induce 
ments  of  the  act  of  1824.  Events  called  loudly,  as  I  thought,  for 
further  regulations  to  secure  the  degree  of  protection  intended  by  that 
act.  I  was  disposed  to  vote  for  such  regulations,  and  desired  nothing 


252  AM  ERIC  AX  PATRIOTISM. 

more  ;  but  certainly  was  not  to  be  bantered  out  of  my  purpose  by  a 
threatened  augmentation  of  duty  on  molasses,  put  into  the  bill  for  the 
avowed  purpose  of  making  it  obnoxious.  The  vote  may  have  been 
right  or  wrong,  wise  or  unwise,  but  it  is  little  less  than  absurd  to 
allege  against  it  an  inconsistency  with  opposition  to  the  former  law. 

Sir,  as  to  the  general  subject  of  the  tariff,  I  have  little  now  to  say. 
Another  opportunity  may  be  presented.  I  remarked,  the  other  day, 
that  this  policy  did  not  begin  with  us  in  New  England  ;  and  yet,  sir, 
New  England  is  charged  with  vehemence  as  being  favorable,  or 
charged  with  equal  vehemence  as  •  being  unfavorable,  to  the  tariff 
policy,  just  as  best  suits  the  time,  place,  and  occasion  for  making 
some  charge  against  her.  The  credulity  of  the  public  has  been  put  to 
its  extreme  capacity  of  false  impression  relative  to  her  conduct  in  this 
particular.  Through  all  the  south,  during  the  late  contest,  it  was  New 
England  policy,  and  a  New  England  administration,  that  was  afflicting 
the  country  with  a  tariff  policy  beyond  all  endurance,  while  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Alleghany,  even  the  act  of  1828  itself — the  very  sub 
limated  essence  of  oppression,  according  to  southern  opinions — was 
pronounced  to  be  one  of  those  blessings  for  which  the  west  was  indebted 
to  the  "  generous  south." 

With  large  investments  in  manufacturing  establishments,  and  vari 
ous  interests  connected  with  and  dependent  on  them,  it  is  not  to  be 
expected  that  New  England,  any  more  than  other  portions  of  the 
country  will  now  consent  to  any  measure  destructive  or  highly 
dangerous.  The  duty  of  the  government,  at  the  present  moment, 
would  seem  to  be  to  preserve,  not  to  destroy  ;  to  maintain  the 
position  which  it  has  assumed  ;  and  for  one,  I  shall  feel  it  an  indis 
pensable  obligation  to  hold  it  steady,  as  far  as  in  my  power,  to  that 
degree  of  protection  which  it  has  undertaken  to  bestow.  No  more  of 
the  tariff. 

Professing  to  be  provoked  by  what  he  chose  to  consider  a  charge 
made  by  me  against  South  Carolina,  the  honorable  member,  Mr. 
President,  has  taken  up  a  new  crusade  against  New  England.  Leav 
ing  altogether  the  subject  of  the  public  lands,  in  which  his  success 
perhaps,  had  been  neither  distinguished  nor  satisfactory,  and  letting 
go,  also,  of  the  topic  of  the  tariff,  he  sallied  forth  in  a  general  assault 
on  the  opinions,  politics,  and  parties  of  New  England,  as  they  have 
been  exhibited  in  the  last  thirty  years.  This  is  natural.  The 
"  narrow  policy"  of  the  public  lands  had  proved  a  legal  settlement  in 
South  Carolina,  and  was  not  to  be  removed.  The  "accursed  policy" 
of  the  tariff,  also,  had  established  the  fact  of  its  birth  and  parentage 
in  the  same  state.  No  wonder,  therefore,  the  gentleman  wished  to 
carry  the  war.  as  he  expressed  it,  into  the  enemy's  country.  Pru 
dently  willing  tc  quit  these  subjects,  he  was  doubtless  desirous  of 
fastening  others,  which  could  not  be  transferred  south  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line  The  politics  of  New  England  became  his  theme  ;  and 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  253 

it  was  in  this  part  of  his  speech,  I  think,  that  he  menaced  me  with 
such  sore  discomfiture. 

Discomfiture  !  why,  sir,  when  he  attacks  any  thing  which  I  main 
tain,  and  overthrows  it;  when  he  turns  the  right  or  left  of  any  position 
which  I  take  up;  when  he  drives  me  from  any  ground  I  choose  to  oc 
cupy,  he  may  then  talk  of  discomfiture,  but  not  till  that  distant  day. 
What  has  he  done?  Has  he  maintained  his  own  charge?  Has  he 
proved  what  he  alleged  ?  Has  he  sustained  himself  in  his  attack  on 
the  government,  and  on  the  history  of  the  north,  in  the  matter  of  the 
public  lands?  Has  he  disproved  a  fact,  refuted  a  proposition,  weak 
ened  an  argument  maintained  by  me?  Has  h»  come  within  beat  of 
drum  of  any  position  of  mine  ?  O,  no  ;  but  he  has  "  carried  the  war 
into  the  enemy's  country  !"  Carried  the  war  into  the  enemy's  coun 
try!  Yes,  sir,  and  what  sort  of  a  war  has  he  made  of  it?  Why,  sir, 
he  has  stretched  a  drag  net  over  the  whole  surface  of  perished  pamph 
lets,  indiscreet  sermons,  frothy  paragraphs,  and  fuming  popular  ad 
dresses;  over  whatever  the  pulpit  in  its  moments  of  alarm,  the  press 
in  its  heats,  and  parties  in  their  extravagance,  have  severally  thrown 
off,  in  times  of  general  excitement  and  violence.  He  has  thus  swept 
together  a  mass  of  such  things,  as,  but  that  they  are  now  old,  the  pub 
lic  health  would  have  required  him  rather  to  leave  in  their  state  of  dis 
persion. 

For  a  good  long  hour  or  two,  we  had  the  unbroken  pleasure  of  list 
ening  to  the  honorable  member,  while  he  recited,  with  his  usual  grace 
and  spirit,  and  with  evident  high  gusto,  speeches,  pamphlets,  ad 
dresses,  and  all  the  et  ceteras  of  the  political  press,  such  as  warm  heads 
produce  in  warm  times,  and  such  as  it  would  be  "  discomfiture"  in 
deed  for  any  one,  whose  taste  did  not  delight  in  that  sort  of  reading, 
to  be  obliged  to  peruse.  This  is  his  war.  This  is  to  carry  the  \var 
into  the  enemy's  country.  It  is  in  an  invasion  of  this  sort  that  he  flat 
ters  himself  with  the  expectation  of  gaining  laurels  fit  to  adorn  a  sen 
ator's  brow. 

Mr.  President,  I  shall  not,  it  will,  I  trust,  not  be  expected  that  I 
should,  either  now  or  at  any  time,  separate  this  farrago  into  parts; 
and  answer  and  examine  its  components.  I  shall  hardly  bestow  upon 
it  all  a  general  remark  or  two.  In  the  run  of  forty  years,  sir,  under 
this  constitution,  we  have  experienced  sundry  successive  violent  party 
contests.  Party  arose,  indeed,  with  the  constitution  itself,  and  in 
some  form  or  other  has  attended  through  the  greater  part  of  its  history. 

Whether  any  other  constitution  than  the  old  articles  of  confedera 
tion  was  desirable  was,  itself,  a  question  on  which  parties  formed,  if 
a  new  constitution  was  framed,  what  powers  should  be  given  to  it  was 
another  question;  and  when  it  had  been  formed,  what  was,  in  fact,  the 
just  extent  of  the  powers  actually  conferred,  was  a  third.  Parties,  as 
we  know,  existed  under  the  first  administration,  as  distinctly  marked 
as  those  which  manifested  themselves  at  any  subsequent  period. 


254  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

The  contest  immediately  preceding  the  political  change  in  1801,  and 
that  again,  which  existed  at  the  commencement  of  the  late  war,  are 
other  instances  of  party  excitement,  of  something  more  than  usual 
strength  and  intensity.  In  all  these  conflicts  there  was,  no  doubt, 
much  of  violence  on  both  and  all  sides.  It  would  be  impossible,  if 
one  had  a  fancy  for  such  employment;  to  adjust  the  relative  quantum 
of  violence  between  these  two  contending  parties.  There  was  enough 
in  each,  as  must  always  be  expected  in  popular  governments.  With  a 
great  deal  of  proper  and  decorous  discussion  there  was  mingled  a  great 
deal,  also,  of  declamation,  virulence,  crimination  and  abuse. 

In  regard  to  any  party,  probably,  at  one  of  the  leading  epochs  in 
the  history  of  parties,  enough  may  be  found  to  make  out  another 
equally  inflamed  exhibition,  as  that  with  which  the  honorable  mem 
ber  has  edified  us.  For  myself,  sir,  I  shall  not  rake  among  the  rub 
bish  of  by-gone  times  to  see  what  I  can  find,  or  whether  I  cannot  find 
something  by  which  I  can  fix  a  blot  on  the  escutcheon  of  any  state, 
any  party,  or  any  part  of  the  country.  General  Washington's  admin 
istration  was  steadily  and  zealously  maintained,  as  we  all  know,  by 
New  England.  It  was  violently  opposed  elsewhere.  We  know  in 
what  quarter  he  had  the  most  earnest,  constant,  and  persevering  sup 
port,  in  all  his  great  and  leading  measures.  We  know  where  his  pri 
vate  and  personal  character  was  held  in  the  highest  degree  of  attach 
ment  and  veneration,  and  we  know,  too,  where  his  measures  were 
opposed,  his  services  slighted,  and  his  character  vilified. 

We  know,  or  we  might  know,  if  we  turn  to  the  journals,  who  ex 
pressed  respect,  gratitude,  and  regret,  when  he  retired  from  the  chief 
magistracy;  and  who  refused  to  express  either  respect,  gratitude,  or 
regret.  I  shall  not  open  those  journals.  Publications  more  abusive 
or  scurrilous  never  saw  the  light  than  were  sent  forth  against  Wash 
ington,  and  all  his  leading  measures,  from  presses  south  of  New  En 
gland;  but  I  shall  not  look  them  up.  I  employ  no  scavengers — no 
one  is  in  attendance  on  me,  tendering  such  means  of  retaliation;  and 
if  there  were,  with  an  ass's  load  of  them,  with  a  bulk  as  huge  as  that 
which  the  gentleman  himself  has  produced,  I  would  not  touch  one  of 
them.  I  see  enough  of  the  violence  of  our  own  times  to  be  no  way 
anxious  to  rescue  from  forgetfulness  the  extravagances  of  times  past. 
Besides,  what  is  all  this  to  the  present  purpose?  It  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  public  lands,  in  regard  to  which  the  attack  was  begun;  and  it 
has  nothing  to  with  those  sentiments  and  opinions,  which  I  have 
thought  tend  to  disunion,  and  all  of  which  the  honorable  member 
seems  to  have  adopted  himself,  and  undertaken  to  defend.  New 
England  has,  at  times, — so  argues  the  gentleman, — held  opinions  as 
dangerous  as  those  which  he  now  holds.  Be  it  so.  But  why,  there 
fore,  does  he  abuse  New  England?  If  he  finds  himself  countenanced 
by  acts  of  hers,  how  is  it  that,  while  he  relies  on  these  acts,  he  covers, 
01  seeks  to  cover  their  authors  with  reproach? 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.         m       '.'  255 

But,  sir,  if,  in  the  course  of  forty  years,  there  have  been  undue  effer 
vescences  of  party  in  New  England,  has  the  same  thing  happened  no 
where  else?  Party  animosity  and  party  outrage,  not  in  New  England, 
but  elsewhere,  denounced  President  Washington,  not  only  as  a  fed- 
raiist,  but  as  a  tory,  a  British  agent,  a  man  who,  in  his  high  office, 
sanctioned  corruption.  But  does  the  honorable  member  suppose  that, 
if  I  had  a  tender  here,  who  should  put  such  an  effusion  of  wickedness 
and  folly  in  my  hand,  that  I  would  stand  up  and  read  it  against  the 
south?  Parties  ran  into  great  heats,  again,  in  1799  and  iSoo.  What 
was  said,  sir,  or  rather  what  was  not  said,  in  those  years,  against  John 
Adams,  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and 
its  admitted  ablest  defender  on  the  floor  of  Congress?  If  the  gentle 
man  wants  to  increase  his  stores  of  party  abuse  and  frothy  violence, 
if  he  has  a  determined  proclivity  to  such  pursuits,  there  are  treasures 
of  that  sort  south  of  the  Potomac,  much  to  his  taste,  yet  untouched.  I 
shall  not  touch  them. 

The  parties  which  divided  the  country,  at  the  commencement  of  the 
late  war,  were  violent.  But,  then,  there  was  violence  on  both  sides, 
and  violence  in  every  state.  Minorities  and  majorities  were  equally 
violent.  There  was  no  more  violence  against  the  war  in  New  Eng 
land  than  in  other  states;  nor  any  more  appearance  of  violence,  ex 
cept  that,  owing  to  a  dense  population,  greater  facility  for  assembling, 
and  more  presses,  there  may  have  been  more,  in  quantity,  spoken 
and  printed  there  than  in  some  other  places.  In  the  article  of  ser 
mons,  too,  New  England  is  somewhat  more  abundant  than  South 
Carolina;  and  for  that  reason,  the  chance  of  finding  here  and  there 
an  exceptionable  one  may  be  greater.  I  hope,  too,  there  are  more 
good  ones.  Opposition  may  have  been  more  formidable  in  New 
England,  as  it  embraced  a  larger  portion  of  the  whole  population; 
but  it  was  no  more  unrestrained  in  its  principle,  or  violent  in  manner. 
The  minorities  dealt  quite  as  harshly  with  their  own  state  govern 
ments  as  the  majorities  dealt  with  the  administration  here.  There 
were  presses  on  both  sides,  popular  meetings  on  both  sides — ay,  and 
pulpits  on  both  sides  also.  The  gentleman's  purveyors  have  only 
catered  for  him  among  the  productions  of  one  side.  I  certainly  shall 
not  supply  the  deficiency  by  furnishing  samples  of  the  other.  I  leave 
to  him,  and  to  them,  the  whole  concern. 

It  is  enough  for  me  to  say  that  if,  in  any  part  of  this,  their  grateful 
occupation — if  in  all  their  researches — they  find  anything  in  the  his 
tory  of  Massachusetts,  or  New  England,  or  in  the  proceedings  of  any 
legislative  or  other  public  body,  disloyal  to  the  Union,  speaking 
slightly  of  its  value,  proposing  to  break  it  up,  or  recommending  non- 
intercourse  with  neighboring  states,  on  account  of  difference  of  politi 
cal  opinion,  then,  sir,  I  give  them  all  up  to  the  honorable  gentleman's 
unrestrained  rebuke,  expecting,  however,  that  he  will  extend  his  buf 
ferings,  in  like  manner,  to  all  similar  proceedings,  wherever  else  found. 


256  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

The  gentleman,  sir,  has  spoken  at  large  of  former  parties,  now  no 
longer  in  being,  by  their  received  appellations,  and  has  undertaken  to 
instruct  us,  not  only  in  the  knowledge  of  their  principles,  but  of  their 
respective  pedigrees  also.  He  has  ascended  to  their  origin,  and  run 
out  their  genealogies.  With  most  exemplary  modesty  he  speaks  of 
the  party  to  which  he  professes  to  have  belonged  himswlf,  as  the  true, 
pure,  the  only  honest,  patriotic  party,  derived  by  regular  descent 
from  father  to  son,  from  the  time  of  the  virtuous  Romans!  Spread 
ing  before  us  the  family  tree  of  political  parties,  he  takes  especial  care 
to  show  himself  snugly  perched  on  a  popular  bough!  He  is  wakeful  to 
the  expediency  of  adopting  such  rules  of  descent,  for  political  parties,  as 
shall  bring  him  in,  in  exclusion  of  others,  as  an  heir  to  the  inheritance 
of  all  public  virtue,  and  all  true  political  principles.  His  doxy  is  always 
orthodoxy.  Heterodoxy  is  confined  to  his  opponents.  He  spoke, 
sir,  of  the  federalists,  and  I  thought  I  saw  some  eyes  begin  to  open 
and  stare  a  little  when  he  ventured  on  that  ground.  I  expected  he 
would  draw  his  sketches  rather  lightly  when  he  looked  on  the  circle 
round  him,  and  especially  if  he  should  cast  his  thoughts  to  the  high 
places  out  of  the  Senate.  Nevertheless,  he  went  back  to  Rome,  ad 
annum  urbe  condita,  and  found  the  fathers  of  the  federalists  in  the 
primeval  aristocrats  of  that  renowned  empire!  He  traced  the  flow  of 
federal  blood  down  through  successive  ages  and  centuries,  till  he  got 
into  the  veins  of  the  American  tories  (of  whom,  by  the  way,  there 
were  twenty  in  the  Carolinas  for  one  in  Massachusetts).  From  the 
tories  he  followed  it  to  the  federalists;  and  as  the  federal  party  was 
broken  up,  and  there  was  no  possibility  of  transmitting  it  further  on 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  he  seems  to  have  discovered  that  it  has  gone 
off,  collaterally,  though  against  all  the  canons  of  descent,  into  the 
ultras  of  France,  and  finally  became  extinguished,  like  exploded  gas, 
among  the  adherents  of  Don  Miguel. 

This,  sir,  is  an  abstract  of  the  gentleman's  history  of  federalism.  I 
am  not  about  to  controvert  it.  It  is  not,  at  present,  worth  the  pains 
of  refutation,  because,  sir,  if  at  this  day  one  feels  the  sin  of  federalism 
lying  heavily  on  his  conscience,  he  can  easily  obtain  remission.  He 
may  even  have  an  indulgence,  if  he  Is  desirous  of  repeating  the  trans 
gression.  It  is  an  affair  of  no  difficulty  to  get  into  this  same  right  • 
line  of  patriotic  descent.  A  man,  nowadays,  is  at  liberty  to  choose 
his  political  parentage.  He  may  elect  his  own  father.  Federalist  OP 
not,  he  may,  if  he  choose,  claim  to  belong  to  the  favored  stock,  and' 
his  claim  will  be  allowed.  He  may  carry  back  his  pretensions  just  as 
far  as  the  honorable  gentleman  himself;  nay,  he  may  make  himself 
out  the  honorable  gentleman's  cousin,  and  prove  satisfactorily  that  he 
is  descended  from  the  same  political  great-grandfather.  All  this  is 
allowable.  We  all  know  a  process,  sir,  by  which  the  whole  Essex 
Junto  could,  in  one  hour,  be  all  washed  white  from  their  ancient 
federalism,  and  come  out,  every  one  of  them,  an  original  democrat, 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  257 

dyed  in  the  wool!  Some  of  them  have  actually  undergone  the  opera 
tion,  and  they  say  it  is  quite  easy.  The  only  inconvenience  it  occa 
sions,  as  they  tell  us,  is  a  slight  tendency  of  the  blood  to  the  face,  a 
soft  suffusion,  which,  however,  is  very  transient,  since  nothing  is  said 
calculated  to  deepen  the  red  on  the  cheek,  but  a  prudent  silence  ob 
served  in  regard  to  all  the  past.  Indeed,  sir,  some  smiles  of  approba 
tion  have  been  bestowed,  and  some  crumbs  of  comfort  have  fallen, 
not  a  thousand  miles  from  the  door  of  the  Hartford  Convention  itself. 
And  if  the  author  of  the  ordinance  of  1787  possessed  the  other  requis 
ite  qualifications,  there  is  no  knowing,  notwithstanding  his  federalism, 
to  what  heights  of  favor  he  might  not  yet  attain. 

Mr.  President,  in  carrying  his  warfare,  such  as  it  was,  into  New 
England,  the  honorable  gentleman  all  along  professes  to  be  acting  on 
the  defensive.  He  desires  to  consider  me  as  having  assailed  South 
Carolina,  and  insists  that  he  comes  forth  only  as  her  champion,  and 
in  her  defence.  Sir,  I  do  not  admit  that  I  made  any  attack  whatever 
on  South  Carolina.  Nothing  like  it.  The  honorable  member,  in  his 
first  speech,  expressed  opinions  in  regard  to  revenue,  and  some  other 
topics,  which  I  heard  both  with  pain  and  surprise.  I  told  the  gentle 
man  that  I  was  aware  that  such  sentiments  were  entertained  out  of 
the  government,  but  had  not  expected  to  find  them  advanced  in  it; 
that  I  knew  there  were  persons  in  the  south  who  speak  of  our  Union 
with  indifference,  or  doubt,  taking  pains  to  magnify  its  evils,  and  to 
say  nothing  of  its  benefits;  that  the  honorable  member  himself,  I  was 
sure,  could  never  be  one  of  these;  and  I  regretted  the  expression  of 
such  opinions  as  he  had  avowed,  because  I  thought  their  obvious  ten 
dency  was  to  encourage  feelings  of  disrespect  to  the  Union,  and  to 
weaken  its  connection.  This,  sir,  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  all  I 
said  on  the  subject.  And  this  constitutes  the  attack  which  called  on 
the  chivalry  of  the  gentleman,  in  his  opinion,  to  harry  us  with  such  a 
forage  among  the  party  pamphlets  and  party  proceedings  of  Massa 
chusetts.  If  he  means  that  I  spoke  with  dissatisfaction  or  disrespect 
of  the  ebullitions  of  individuals  in  South  Carolina,  it  is  true.  But,  if 
he  means  that  I  had  assailed  the  character  of  the  state,  her  honor  or 
patriotism,  that  I  had  reflected  on  her  history  or  her  conduct,  he  had 
not  the  slightest  ground  for  any  such  assumption.  I  did  not  even 
refer,  I  think,  in  my  observations,  to  any  collection  of  individuals.  I 
said  nothing  of  the  recent  conventions.  I  spoke  in  the  most  guarded 
and  careful  manner,  and  only  expressed  my  regret  for  the  publication 
of  opinions  .which  I  presumed  the  honorable  member  disapproved  as 
much  as  myself.  In  this,  it  seems,  I  was  mistaken. 

I  do  not  remember  that  the  gentleman  has  disclaimed  any  senti 
ment,  or  any  opinion,  of  a  supposed  anti-Union  tendency,  which  on 
all  or  any  of  the  recent  occasions  has  been  expressed.  The  whole 
drift  of  his  speech  has  been  rather  to  prove,  that,  in  divers  times  and 
manners,  sentiments  equally  liable  to  objection  have  been  promul- 


258  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

gated  in  New  England.  And  one  would  suppose  that  his  object,  in 
this  reference  to  Massachusetts,  was  to  find  a  precedent  to  justify 
proceedings  in  the  south,  were  it  not  for  the  reproach  and  contumely 
with  which  he  labors,  all  along,  to  load  his  precedents. 

By  way  of  defending  South  Carolina  from  what  he  chooses  to  think 
an  attack  on  her,  he  first  quotes  the  example  of  Massachusetts,  and 
then  denounces  that  example,  in  good  set  terms.  This  twofold  pur 
pose,  not  very  consistent  with  itself,  one  would  think,  was  exhibited 
more  than  once  in  the  course  of  his  speech.  He  referred,  for  instance, 
to  the  Hartford  Convention.  Did  he  do  this  for  authority,  or  for  a 
topic  of  reproach  ?  Apparently  for  both;  for  he  told  us  that  he  should 
find  no  fault  with  the  mere  fact  of  holding  such  a  convention,  and 
considering  and  discussing  such  questions  as  he  supposes  were  then 
and  there  discussed;  but  what  rendered  it  obnoxious  was  the  time  it 
was  holden,  and  the  circumstances  of  the  country  then  existing.  We 
were  in  a  war,  he  said,  and  the  country  needed  all  our  aid;  the  hand 
of  government  required  to  be  strengthened,  not  weakened;  and  patri 
otism  should  have  postponed  such  proceedings  to  another  day.  The 
thing  itself,  then,  is  a  precedent;  the  time  and  manner  of  it,  only,  sub 
ject  of  censure. 

Now,  sir,  I  go  much  farther,  on  this  point,  than  the  honorable  mem 
ber.  Supposing,  as  the  gentleman  seems  to,  that  the  Hartford  Con 
vention  assembled  for  any  such  purpose  as  breaking  up  the  Union, 
because  they  thought  unconstitutional  laws  had  been  passed,  or  to 
concert  on  that  subject,  or  to  calculate  the  value  of  the  Union;  sup 
posing  this  to  be  their  purpose,  or  any  part  of  it,  then  I  say  the  meet 
ing  itself  was  disloyal,  and  obnoxious  to  censure,  whether  held  in 
time  of  peace,  or  time  of  war,  or  under  whatever  circumstances.  The 
material  matter  is  the  object.  Is  dissolution  the  object  ?  If  it  be,  ex 
ternal  circumstances  may  make  it  a  more  or  less  aggravated  case,  but 
cannot  affect  the  principle.  I  do  not  hold,  therefore,  that  the  Hartford 
Convention  was  pardonable,  even  to  the  extent  of  the  gentleman's 
admission,  if  its  objects  were  really  such  as  have  been  imputed  to  it. 
Sir,  there  never  was  a  time,  under  any  degree  of  excitement,  in  which 
the  Hartford  Convention,  or  any  other  convention,  could  maintain  it 
self  one  moment  in  New  England,  if  assembled  for  any  such  purpose 
as  the  gentleman  says  would  have  been  an  allowable  purpose.  To 
hold  conventions  to  decide  questions  of  constitutional  law  ! — to  try 
the  binding  validity  of  statutes,  by  votes  in  a  convention  !  Sir,  the 
Hartford  Convention,  I  presume,  would  not  desire  that  the  honorable 
gentleman  should  be  their  defender  or  advocate,  if  he  puts  their  case 
upon  such  untenable  and  extravagant  grounds. 

Then,  sir,  the  gentleman  has  no  fault  to  find  with  these  recently- 
promulgated  South  Carolina  opinions.  And,  certainly,  he  need  have 
none;  for  his  own  sentiments,  as  now  advanced,  and  advanced  on  re- 
floction,  as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  comprehend  them,  go  the  full 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  259 

length  of  all  these  opinions.  I  propose,  sir,  to  say  something  on 
these,  and  to  consider  how  far  they  are  just  and  constitutional.  Be 
fore  doing  that,  however,  let  me  observe,  that  the  eulogium  pro 
nounced  on  the  character  of  the  state  of  South  Carolina,  by  the  hon 
orable  gentleman,  for  her  revolutionary  and  other  merits,  meets  my 
hearty  concurrence.  I  shall  not  acknowledge  that  the  honorable 
member  goes  before  me  in  regard  for  whatever  of  distinguished  talent 
or  distinguished  character  South  Carolina  has  produced.  I  claim  part 
of  the  honor,  I  partake  in  the  pride,  of  her  great  name.  I  claim  them 
for  countrymen,  one  and  all.  The  Laurenses,  the  Rutledges,  the 
Pinckneys,  the  Sumpters,  the  Marions — Americans  all — whose  fame 
is  no  more  to  be  hemmed  in  by  state  lines  than  their  talents  and  pat 
riotism  were  eapable  of  being  circumscribed  within  the  same  narrow 
limits.  In  their  day  and  generation,  they  served  and  honored  the 
country,  and  the  whole  country;  and  their  renown  is  of  the  treasures 
of  the  whole  country.  Him  whose  honored  name  the  gentleman  him 
self  bears — does  he  suppose  me  less  capable  of  gratitude  for  his  patri 
otism,  or  sympathy  for  his  sufferings,  than  if  his  eyes  had  first  opened 
upon  the  light  in  Massachusetts  instead  of  South  Carolina?  Sir,  does 
he  suppose  it  is  in  his  power  to  exhibit  a  Carolina  name  so  bright  as 
to  produce  envy  in  my  bosom  ?  No,  sir;  increased  gratification  and 
delight,  rather. 

Sir,  I  thank  God  that  if  I  am  gifted  with  little  of  the  spirit  which  is 
said  to  be  able  to  raise  mortals  to  the  skies,  I  have  yet  none,  as  I 
trust,  of  that  other  spirit,  which  woulS  drag  angels  down.  When  I 
shall  be  found,  sir,  in  my  place  here  in  the  Senate,  or  elsewhere,  to 
sneer  at  public  merit,  because  it  happened  to  spring  up  beyond  the 
little  limits  of  my  own  state,  or  neighborhood;  when  I  refuse,  for  any 
such  cause,  or  for  any  cause,  the  homage  due  to  American  talent,  to 
elevated  patriotism,  to  sincere  devotion  to  liberty  and  the  country;  or 
if  I  see  an  uncommon  endowment  of  Heaven,  if  I  see  extraordinary 
capacity  and  virtue  in  any  son  of  the  south,  and  if,  moved  by  local 
prejudice,  or  gangrened  by  state  jealousy,  I  get  up  here  to  abate  the 
tithe  of  a  hair  from  his  just  character  and  just  fame, — may  my  tongue 
cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth  !  Sir,  let  me  recur  to  pleasing  recol 
lections;  let  me  indulge  in  refreshing  remembrance  of  the  past;  let 
me  remind  you  that  in  early  times  no  states  cherished  greater  har 
mony,  both  of  principle  and  feeling,  than  Massachusetts  and  South 
Carolina.  Would  to  God  that  harmony  might  again  return.  Shoulder 
to  shoulder  they  went  through  the  revolution;  hand  in  hand  they  stood 
round  the  administration  of  Washington,  and  felt  his  own  great  arm 
lean  on  them  for  support.  Unkind  feeling,  if  it  exist,  alienation,  and 
distrust  are  the  growth,  unnatural  to  such  soils,  of  false  principles 
since  sown.  They  are  weeds,  the  seeds  of  which  that  same  great  arm 
never  scattered. 

Mr.  President,  I  shall  enter  on  no  encomium  upon  Massachusetts--1 


2  60  A  ME  RICA  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

she  needs  none.  There  she  is — behold  her,  and  judge  for  yourselves. 
There  is  her  history — the  world  knows  it  by  heart.  The  past,  at  least, 
is  secure.  There  is  Boston,  and  Concord,  and  Lexington,  and  Bunker 
Hill;  and  there  they  will  remain  forever.  The  bones  of  her  sons, 
fallen  in  the  great  struggle  for  independence,  now  lie  mingled  with  the 
soil  of  every  state  from  New  England  to  Georgia;  and  there  they  will 
lie  forever.  And,  sir,  where  American  liberty  raised  its  first  voice, 
and  where  its  youth  was  nurtured  and  sustained,  there  it  still  lives,  in 
the  strength  of  its  manhood,  and  full  of  its  original  spirit.  If  discord 
and  disunion  shall  wound  it;  if  party  strife  and  blind  ambition  shall 
hawk  at  and  tear  it;  if  folly  and  madness,  if  uneasiness  under  salu 
tary  and  necessary  restraint,  shall  succeed  to  separate  it  from  that 
Union  by  which  alone  its  existence  is  made  sure, — It  will  stand,  in  the 
end,  by  the  side  of  that  cradle  in  which  its  infancy  was  rocked;  it  vail 
stretch  forth  its  arm,  with  whatever  vigor  it  may  still  retain,  over  the 
friends  who  gather  round  it;  and  it  will  fall  at  last,  if  fall  it  must, 
amidst  the  proudest  monuments  of  its  own  glory,  and  on  the  very  spot 
of  its  origin. 

There  yet  remains  to  be  performed,  Mr.  President,  by  far  the  mo  t 
grave  and  important  duty  which  I  feel  to  be  devolved  on  me  by  th's 
occasion.  It  is  to  state,  and  to  defend,  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  true 
principles  of  the  constitution  under  \vhich  we  are  here  assembled.  I 
might  well  have  desired  that  so  weighty  a  task  should  have  fallen  into 
other  and  abler  hands.  I  could  have  wished  that  it  should  have  been 
executed  by  those  whose  character  and  experience  give  weight  and  in 
fluence  to  their  opinions,  such  as  cannot  possibly  belong  to  mine.  Buf, 
sir,  I  have  met  the  occasion,  not  sought  it;  and  I  shall  proceed  to  state 
my  own  sentiments,  without  challenging  for  them  any  particular  re 
gard,  with  studied  plainness  and  as  much  precision  as  possible. 

I  understand  the  honorable  gentleman  from  South  Carolina  to  main 
tain  that  it  is  .a  right  of  the  state  legislatures  to  interfere,  whenever,  in 
their  judgment,  this  government  transcends  its  constitutional  limits, 
and  to  arrest  the  operation  of  its  laws. 

I  understand  him  to  maintain  this  right  as  a  right  existing  under  the 
constitution,  not  as  a  right  to  overthrow  it,  on  the  ground  of  extreme 
necessity,  such  as  would  justify  violent  revolution. 

I  understand  him  to  maintain  an  authority,  on  the  part  of  the  states, 
thus  to  interfere,  for  the  purpose  of  correcting  the  exercise  of  power 
by  the  general  government,  of  checking  it,  and  of  compelling  it  to 
coniorm  to  their  opinion  of  the  extent  of  its  power. 

I  understand  him  to  maintain  that  the  ultimate  power  of  judging  of 
the  constitutional  extent  of  its  own  authority  is  not  lodged  exclusively  in 
the  general  government  or  any  branch  of  it;  but  that  on  the  contrary, 
the  states  may  lawfully  decide  for  themselves,  and  each  state  for  itself, 
whether,  in  a  given  case,  the  act  of  the  general  government  transcends 
its  power. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  261 

I  understand  him  to  insist  that,  if  the  exigency  of  the  case,  in  the 
opinion  of  any  state  government,  require  it,  such  state  government 
may,  by  its  own  sovereign  authority,  annul  an  act  of  the  general  gov 
ernment  which  it  deems  plainly  and  palpably  unconstitutional. 

This  is  the  sum  of  what  I  understand  from  him  to  be  the  South  Caro 
lina  doctrine.  I  propose  to  consider  it,  and  to  compare  it  with  the  con 
stitution.  Allow  me  to  say,  as  a  preliminary  remark,  that  I  call  this 
the  South  Carolina  doctrine,  only  because  the  gentleman  himself  has 
so  denominated  it.  I  do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  say  that  South  Carolina, 
as  a  state,  has  ever  advanced  these  sentiments.  I  hope  she  has  not, 
and  never  may.  That  a  great  majority  of  her  people  are  opposed  to 
the  tariff  laws  is  doubtless  true.  That  a  majority,  somewhat  less  than 
that  just  mentioned,  conscientiously  believe  these  laws  unconstitution 
al,  may  probably  also  be  true.  But  that  any  majority  holds  to  the 
right  of  direct  state  interference,  at  state  discretion,  the  right  of  nulli 
fying  acts  of  Congress  by  acts  of  state  legislation,  is  more  than  I  know, 
and  what  I  shall  be  slow  to  believe. 

That  there  are  individuals,  besides  the  honorable  gentleman,  who  do 
maintain  these  opinions,  is  quite  certain.  I  recollect  the  recent  ex 
pression  of  a  sentiment  which  circumstances  attending  its  utterance 
and  publication  justify  us  in  supposing  was  not  unpremeditated — "The 
sovereignty  of  the  state;  never  to  be  controlled,  construed,  or  decided 
on,  but  by  her  own  feelings  of  honorable  justice." 

[Mr.  Hayne  here  rose,  and  said,  that,  for  the  purpose  of  being 
clearly  understood,  he  would  state  that  his  proposition  was  in  the  words 
of  the  Virginian  resolution,  as  follows. — 

"  That  this  Assembly  doth  explicitly  and  peremptorily  declare,  that 
it  views  the  powers  of  the  federal  government,  as  resulting  from  the 
compact  to  which  the  states  are  parties,  as  limited  by  the  plain  sense 
and  intention  of  the  instrument  constituting  that  compact,  as  no  further 
valid  than  they  are  authorized  by  the  grants  enumerated  in  that  com 
pact;  and  that,  in  case  of  a  deliberate,  palpable  and  dangerous  exercise 
of  other  powers  not  granted  by  the  said  compact,  the  states  who  are 
parties  thereto  have  the  right,  and  are  in  duty  bound,  to  interpose  for 
arresting  the  progress  of  the  evil,  and  for  maintaining  within  their 
respective  limits,  the  authorities,  rights  and  liberties  pertaining  to 
them."] 

Mr.  Webster  resumed: — 

I  am  quite  aware,  Mr.  President,  of  the  existence  of  the  resolution 
which  the  gentleman  read,  and  has  now  repeated,  and  that  he  relies  ou 
it  as  his  authority.  I  know  the  source,  too,  from  which  it  is  under 
stood  to  have  proceeded.  I  need  not  say,  that  I  have  much  respect 
for  the  constitutional  opinions  cf  Mr.  Madison  ;  they  would  weigh 
greatly  with  me,  always.  But,  before  the  authority  of  his  opinion  be 
vouched  for  the  gentleman's  proposition,  it  will  be  proper  to  consider 
what  is  the  fair  interpretation  of  that  resolution,  to  which  Mr,  Madi- 


262  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

son  is  understood  to  have  given  his  sanction.  As  the  gentleman  con 
strues  it,  it  is  an  authority  for  him.  Possibly  he  may  not  have  adopted 
the  right  construction.  That  resolution  declares,  that  in  the  case  of 
the  dangerous  exercise  of  powers  not  granted  by  the  general  govern 
ment,  the  states  may  interpose  to  arrest  the  progress  of  the  evil.  But 
how  interpose  ?  and  what  does  this  declaration  purport  ?  Does  it 
mean  no  more  than  that  there  may  be  extreme  cases  in  which  the  peo 
ple,  in  any  mode  of  assembling,  may  resist  usurpation,  and  relieve 
themselves  from  a  tyrannical  government  ?  No  one  will  deny  this. 
Such  resistance  is  not  only  acknowledged  to  be  just  in  America,  but 
in  England  also.  Blackstone  admits  as  much,  in  the  theory  and  prac 
tice,  too,  of  the  English  constitution.  We,  sir,  who  oppose  the  Caro 
lina  doctrine,  do  not  deny  that  the  people  may,  if  they  choose,  throw 
off  any  government,  when  it  becomes  oppressive  and  intolerable,  and 
erect  a  better  in  its  stead.  We  all  know  that  civil  institutions  are  es 
tablished  for  the  public  benefit,  and  that,  when  they  cease  to  answer 
the  ends  of  their  existence,  they  may  be  changed. 

But  I  do  not  understand  the  doctrine  now  contended  for  to  be  that 
which,  for  the  sake  of  distinctness,  we  may  call  the  right  of  revolution. 
I  understand  the  gentleman  to  maintain,  that  without  revolution,  with 
out  civil  commotion,  without  rebellion,  a  remedy  for  supposed  abuse 
and  transgression  of  the  powers  of  the  general  government  lies  in  a 
direct  appeal  to  the  interference  of  the  state  governments.  [Mr. 
Hayne  here  rose:  He  did  not  contend,  he  said,  for  the  mere  right  of 
revolution,  but  for  the  right  of  constitutional  resistance.  WThat  he 
maintained  was,  that,  in  case  of  a  plain,  palpable  violation  of  the  con 
stitution  by  the  general  government,  a  state  may  interpose;  and  that 
this  interposition  is  constitutional.]  Mr.  Webster  resumed: — 

So,  sir,  I  understood  the  gentleman,  and  am  happy  to  find  that  I  did 
not  misunderstand  him.  What  he  contends  for  is,  that  it  is  constitu 
tional  to  interrupt  the  administration  of  the  Constitution  itself,  in  the 
hands  of  those  who  are  chosen  and  sworn  to  administer  it,  by  the 
direct  interference,  in  form  of  law,  of  the  states,  in  virtue  of  their  sov« 
ereign  capacity.  The  inherent  right  in  the  people  to  reform  their  gov 
ernment  I  do  not  deny;  and  they  have  another  right,  and  that  is,  to 
resist  unconstitutional  laws  without  overturning  the  government.  It 
is  no  doctrine  of  mine,  that  unconstitutional  laws  bind  the  people. 
The  great  question  is.  Whose  prerogative  is  it  to  decide  on  the  consti 
tutionality  or  unconstitutionality  of  the  laws?  On  that  the  main 
debate  hinges.  The  proposition  that,  in  case  of  a  supposed  violation 
of  the  Constitution  by  Congress,  the  states  have  a  constitutional  right 
to  interfere  and  annul  the  law  of  Congress,  is  the  proposition  of  the 
gentleman;  I  do  not  admit  it.  If  the  gentleman  had  intended  no  more 
than  to  assert  the  right  of  revolution  for  justifiable  cause,  he  would 
have  said  only  what  all  agree  to.  But  I  cannot  conceive  that  there 
can  be  a  middle  course  between  submission  to  the  laws,  when  regu- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  263 

larly  pronounced  constitutional  on  the  one  hand,  and  open  resist 
ance,  which  is  revolution  or  rebellion,  on  the  other.  I  say  the 
right  of  a  state  to  annul  a  law  of  Congress  cannot  be  maintained  but 
on  the  ground  of  the  unalienable  right  of  man  to  resist  oppression; 
that  is  to  say  upon  the  ground  of  revolution.  I  admit  that  there  is  an 
ultimate  violent  remedy,  above  the  Constitution,  and  in  defiance  of 
the  Constitution,  which  may  be  resorted  to,  when  a  revolution  is  to  be 
justified.  But  I  do  not  admit  that,  under  the  Constitution,  and  in  con 
formity  with  it,  there  is  any  mode  in  which  a  state  government  as  a 
member  of  the  Union,  can  interfere  and  stop  the  progress  of  the 
general  government,  by  force  of  her  own  laws,  under  any  circum 
stances  whatever. 

This  leads  us  to  inquire  into  the  origin  of  this  government,  and  the 
source  of  its  power.  Whose  agent  is  it?  Is  it  the  creature  of  the  state 
legislatures,  or  the  creature  of  the  people  ?  If  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  be  the  agent  of  the  state  governments,  then  they  may 
control  it,  provided  they  can  agree  in  the  manner  of  controlling  it;  if 
it  is  the  agent  of  the  people,  then  the  people  alone  can  control  it, 
restrain  it,  modify  or  reform  it.  It  is  observable  enough,  that  the 
doctrine  for  which  the  honorable  gentleman  contends,  leads  him  to  the 
necessity  of  maintaining,  not  only  that  this  general  government  is  the 
creature  of  the  states,  but  that  it  is  the  creature  of  each  of  the  states 
severally;  so  that  each  may  assert  the  power,  for  itself,  of  determining 
whether  it  acts  within  the  limits  of  its  authority.  It  is  the  servant  of 
four  and  twenty  masters,  of  different  wills  and  different  purposes; 
and  yet  bound  to  obey  all.  This  absurdity  (for  it  seems  no  less) 
arises  from  a  misconception  as  to  the  origin  of  this  government,  and 
its  true  character.  It  is,  sir,  the  people's  constitution,  the  people's 
government;  made  for  the  people;  made  by  the  people;  and  answera 
ble  to  the  people.  The  people  of  the  United  States  have  declared 
that  this  Constitution  shall  be  the  supreme  law.  We  must  either  admit 
the  proposition,  or  dispute  their  authority.  The  states  are  unques 
tionably  sovereign,  so  far  as  their  sovereignty  is  not  affected  by  this 
supreme  law.  The  state  legislatures,  as  political  bodies,  however 
sovereign,  are  yet  not  sovereign  over  the  people.  So  far  as  the  people 
have  given  power  to  the  general  government,  so  for  the  grant  is  un 
questionably  good,  and  the  government  holds  of  the  people,  and  not 
of  the  state  governments.  We  are  all  agents  of  the  same  supreme 
power,  the  people.  The  general  government  and  the  state  govern 
ments  derive  their  authority  from  the  same  source.  Neither  can,  in 
relation  to  the  other,  be  called  primary;  though  one  is  definite  and  re 
stricted,  and  the  other  general  and  residuary. 

The  national  government  posseses  those  powers  which  it  can  be 
shown  the  people  have  conferred  on  it,  and  no  more.  All  the  rest  be 
longs  to  the  state  governments,  or  to  the  people  themselves.  So  far  as 
the  people  have  restrained  state  sovereignty  by  the  expression  of  their 


264  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

will,  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  so  far,  it  must  be  ad 
mitted,  state  sovereignty  is  effectually  controlled.  I  do  not  contend 
that  it  is,  or  ought  to  be,  controlled  further.  The  sentiment  to  which 
I  have  referred  propounds  that  state  sovereignty  is  only  to  be  con 
trolled  by  its  own  "feeling  of  justice;"  that  is  to  say,  it  is  not  to  be 
controlled  at  all,  for  one  who  is  to  follow  his  feelings,  is  under  no  legal 
control.  Now,  however  men  may  think  this  ought  to  be,  the  fact  is,  that 
the  people  of  the  United  States  have  chosen  to  impose  control  on 
state  sovereignties.  The  Constitution  has  ordered  the  matter  differ 
ently  from  what  this  opinion  announces.  To  make  war,  for  instance, 
is  an  exercise  of  sovereignty;  but  the  Constitution  declares  that  no 
state  shall  make  war.  To  coin  money  is  another  exercise  of  sovereign 
power;  but  no  state  is  at  liberty  to  coin  money.  Again:  the  Consti 
tution  says,  that  no  sovereign  state  shall  be  so  sovereign  as  to  make  a 
treaty.  These  prohibitions,  it  must  be  confessed,  are  a  control  on  the 
state  sovereignty  of  South  Carolina,  as  well  as  of  the  other  states,  which 
does  not  arise  "  from  her  own  feelings  of  honorable  justice."  Such 
an  opinion;  therefore,  is  in  defiance  of  the  plainest  provisions  of  the 
Constitution. 

There  are  other  proceedings  of  public  bodies  which  have  already 
been  alluded  to,  and  to  which  I  refer  again  for  the  purpose  of  ascer 
taining  more  fully  what  is  the  length  and  breadth  of  that  doctrine, 
denominated  the  Carolina  doctrine,  which  the  honorable  member  has 
now  stood  up  on  this  floor  to  maintain. 

In  one  of  them  I  find  it  resolved  that  "  the  tariff  of  1828,  and  every 
other  tariff  designed  to  promote  one  branch  of  industry  at  the  expense 
of  others,  is  contrary  to  the  meaning  and  intention  of  the  federal  com 
pact;  and  as  such,  a  dangerous,  palpable,  and  deliberate  usurpation  of 
power,  by  a  determined  majority,  wielding  the  general  government 
beyond  the  limits  of  its  delegated  powers,  as  calls  upon  the  states 
which  compose  the  suffering  minority,  in  their  sovereign  capacity,  to 
exercise  the  powers  which,  as  sovereigns,  necessarily  devolve  upon 
them,  when  their  compact  is  violated." 

Observe,  sir,  that  this  resolution  holds  t^e  tariff  of  1828,  and  every 
other  tariff,  designed  to  promote  one  branch  of  industry  at  the  expense 
of  another,  to  be  such  a  dangerous,  palpable,  and  deliberate  usurpa 
tion  of  power,  as  calls  upon  the  states,  in  their  sovereign  capacity  to 
interfere  by  their  own  power.  This  denunciation,  Mr.  President,  you 
will  please  to  observe,  includes  our  old  tariff  of  1816,  as  well  as  ail 
others;  because  that  was  established  to  promote  the  interest  of  the 
manufactures  of  cotton,  to  the  manifest  and  admitted  injury  of  the  Cal 
cutta  cotton  trade,  Observe,  again,  that  all  the  qualifications  are  here 
rehearsed,  and  charged  upon  the  tariff,  which  are  necessary  to  bring 
the  case  within  the  gentleman's  proposition.  The  tariff  is  a  usurpa 
tion;  it  is  a  dangerous  usurpation;  it  is  a  palpable  usurpation;  it  is 
a  deliberate  usurpation.  It  is  such  a  usurpation  as  calls  upon  the 


DA  XI  EL    WEBSTER.  265 

states  to  exercise  their  right  of  interference.  Here  is  a.  case  then, 
within  the  gentleman's  principles,  and  all  his  qualifications  of  his 
principles.  It  is  a  case  for  action.  The  Constitution  is  plainly,  dan 
gerously,  palpably,  and  deliberately  violated;  and  the  states  must  in 
terpose  their  own  authority  to  arrest  the  law.  Let  us  suppose  the  state  of 
South  Carolina  to  express  the  same  opinion,  by  the  voice  of  her  legis 
lature.  That  would  be  very  imposing;  but  what  then?  Is  the  voice 
of  one  state  conclusive?  It  so  happens  that,  at  the  very  moment 
when  South  Carolina  resolves  that  the  tariff  laws  are  unconstitutional, 
Pennsylvania  and  Kentucky  resolve  exactly  the  reverse.  They  hold 
those  laws  to  be  both  highly  proper  and  strictly  constitutional.  And 
now,  sir,  how  does  the  honorable  member  propose  to  deal  with  this 
case?  How  does  he  get  out  of  this  difficulty,  upon  any  principle  of 
his?  His  construction  gets  us  into  it;  how  does  he  propose  to  get  us 
out? 

In  Carolina,  the  tariff  is  a  palpable,  deliberate  usurpation.  Caro 
lina,  therefore,  may  nullify  it,  and  refuse  to  pay  the  duties.  In  Penn 
sylvania,  it  is  both  clearly  constitutional  and  highly  expedient;  and 
there  the  duties  are  to  be  paid.  And  yet  we  live  under  a  government 
of  uniform  laws,  and  under  a  constitution,  too,  which  contains  an  ex 
press  provision,  as  it  happens,  that  all  duties  shall  be  equal  in  all  the 
states!  Does  not  this  approach  absurdity? 

If  there  be  no  power  to  settle  such  questions,  independent  of  either 
of  the  states,  is  not  the  whole  Union  a  rope  of  sand  ?  Are  we  not 
thrown  back  again  precisely  upon  the  old  confederation  ? 

It  is  too  plain  to  be  argued.  Four  and  twenty  interpreters  of  con 
stitutional  law,  each  with  a  power  to  decide  for  itself,  and  none  with 
authority  to  bind  any  body  else,  and  this  constitutional  law  the  only 
bond  of  their  union!  What  is  such  a  state  of  things  but  a  mere  con 
nection  during  pleasure,  or,  to  use  the  phraseology  of  the  times,  dur 
ing  feeling?  And  that  feeling,  too,  not  the  feeling  of  the  people  who 
established  the  constitution,  but  the  feeling  of  the  state  governments. 

In  another  of  the  South  Carolina  addresses,  having  premised  that 
the  crisis  requires  "all  the  concentrated  energy  of  passion,"  an  atti 
tude  of  open  resistance  to  the  laws  of  the  Union  is  advised.  Open 
resistance  to  the  laws,  then,  is  the  constitutional  remedy,  the  conser 
vative  power  of  the  state,  which  the  South  Carolina  doctrines  teach 
for  the  redress  of  political  evils,  real  or  imaginary.  And  its  authors 
further  say  that,  appealing  with  confidence  to  the  constitution  itself  to 
justify  their  opinions,  they  cannot  consent  to  try  their  accuracy  by  the 
courts  of  justice.  In  one  sense,  indeed,  sir,  this  is  assuming  an  atti 
tude  of  open  resistance  in  favor  of  liberty.  But  what  sort  of  liberty? 
The  liberty  of  establishing  their  own  opinions,  in  defiance  of  the 
opinions  of  all  others;  the  liberty  of  judging  and  of  deciding  exclu 
sively  themselves,  in  a  matter  in  which  others  have  as  much  right  to 
judge  and  decide  as  they;  the  liberty  of  placing  their  opinions  above 


266  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

the  judgment  of  all  others,  above  the  laws,  and  above  the  constitution. 
This  is  their  liberty,  and  this  is  the  fair  result  of  the  proposition  con 
tended  for  by  the  honorable  gentleman.  Or  it  may  be  more  properly 
said,  it  is  identical  with  it,  rather  than  a  result  from  it.  In  the  same 
publication  we  find  the  following:  "Previously  to  our  revolution, 
when  the  arm  of  oppression  was  stretched  over  New  England,  where 
did  our  northern  brethern  meet  with  a  braver  sympathy  than  that 
which  sprung  from  the  bosom  of  Carolinians  ?  We  had  no  extortion, 
no  oppression,  no  collision  with  the  king's  ministers,  no  navigation 
interests  springing  up,  in  envious  rivalry  of  England." 

This  seems  extraordinary  language.  South  Carolina  no  collision 
with  the  king's  ministers  in  1775!  no  extortion!  no  oppression!  But, 
sir,  it  is  also  most  significant  language.  Does  any  man  doubt  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  penned  ?  Can  any  one  fail  to  see  that  it  was 
designed  to  raise  in  the  reader's  mind  the  question,  whether,  at  this 
time, — that  is  to  say,  in  1828 — South  Carolina  has  any  collision  with 
the  king's  ministers,  any  oppression,  or  extortion,  to  fear  from  Eng 
land  ?  whether,  in  short,  England  is  not  as  naturally  the  friend  of 
South  Carolina  as  New  England,  with  her  navigation  interests  spring 
ing  up  in  envious  rivalry  of  England  ? 

Is  it  not  strange,  sir,  that  an  intelligent  man  in  South  Carolina,  in 
1828,  should  thus  labor  to  prove,  that,  in  1775,  there  was  no  hostility, 
no  cause  of  war,  between  South  Carolina  and  England  ?  that  she  had 
no  occasion,  in  reference  to  her  own  interest,  or  from  a  regard  to  her 
own  welfare,  to  take  up  arms  in  the  revolutionary  contest?  Can  any 
one  account  for  the  expression  of  such  strange  sentiments,  and  their 
circulation  through  the  state,  otherwise  than  by  supposing  the  object 
to  be,  what  I  have  already  intimated,  to  raise  the  question,  if  they  had 
no  "collision"  (mark  the  expression)  with  the  ministers  of  King 
George  the  Third,  in  1775,  what  collision  have  they,  in  1828,  with  the 
ministers  of  King  George  the  Fourth  ?  What  is  there  now,  in  the  ex 
isting  state  of  things,  to  separate  Carolina  from  Old,  more,  or  rather 
less,  than  from  New  England? 

Resolutions,  sir,  have  been  recently  passed  by  the  legislature  of 
South  Carolina.  I  need  not  refer  to  them;  they  go  no  further  than 
the  honorable  gentleman  himself  has  gone — and  I  hope  not  so  far. 
I  content  myself,  therefore,  with  debating  the  matter  with  him. 

And  now,  sir,  what  I  have  first  to  say  on  this  subject  is,  that  at  no 
time,  and  under  no  circumstances,  has  New  England,  or  any  state  in 
New  England,  or  any  respectable  body  of  persons  in  New  England, 
or  any  public  man  of  standing  in  New  England,  put  forth  such  a  doc 
trine  as  this  Carolina  doctrine. 

The  gentleman  has  found  no  case — he  can  find  none — to  support  his 
own  opinions  by  New  England  authority.  New  England  has  studied 
the  constitution  in  other  schools,  and  under  other  teachers.  She  looks 
upon  it  with  other  regards,  and  deems  more  highly  and  reverently, 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  267 

both  of  its  just  authority  and  its  utility  and  excellence.  The  history 
of  her  legislative  proceedings  may  be  traced— the  ephemeral  effusions 
of  temporary  bodies,  called  together  by  the  excitement  of  the  occasion, 
may  be  hunted  up — they  have  been  hunted  up.  The  opinions  and 
votes  of  her  public  men,  in  and  out  of  Congress,  may  be  explored — it 
will  all  be  in  vain.  The  Carolina  doctrine  can  derive  from  her  neither 
countenance  nor  support.  She  rejects  it  now;  she  always  did  reject 
it;  and  till  she  loses  her  senses,  she  always  will  reject  it.  The  honor 
able  member  has  referred  to  expressions  on  the  subject  of  the  embargo 
law,  made  in  this  place  by  an  honorable  and  venerable  gentleman 
(Mr.  Hillhouse)  now  favoring  us  with  his  presence.  He  quotes  that 
distinguished  senator  as  saying,  that  in  his  judgment  the  embargo  law 
was  unconstitutional,  and  that,  therefore,  in  his  opinion,  the  people 
were  not  bound  to  obey  it. 

That,  sir,  is  perfectly  constitutional  language.  An  unconstitutional 
law  is  not  binding;  but  then  it  does  not  rest-  with  a  resolution  or  a  law 
of  a  state  legislature  to  decide  whether  an  act  of  Congress  be  or  be 
not  constitutional.  An  unconstitutional  act  of  Congress  would  not 
bind  the  people  of  this  District,  although  they  have  no  legislature  to 
interfere  in  their  behalf;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  constitutional  law 
of  Congress  does  bind  the  citizens  of  every  state,  although  all  their 
legislatures  should  undertake  to  annul  it,  by  act  or  resolution.  The 
venerable  Connecticut  senator  is  a  constitutional  lawyer,  of  sound  prin 
ciples  and  enlarged  knowledge;  a  statesman  practised  and  experi 
enced,  bred  in  the  company  of  Washington,  and  holding  just  views 
upon  the  nature  of  our  governments.  He  believed  the  embargo  un 
constitutional,  and  so  did  others;  but  what  then?  Who  did  he  suppose 
was  to  decide  that  question  ?  The  state  legislatures  ?  Certainly  not. 
No  such  sentiment  ever  escaped  his  lips.  Let  us  follow  up,  sir,  this 
New  England  opposition  to  the  embargo  laws;  let  us  trace  it,  till  we 
discern  the  principle  which  controlled  and  governed  New  England 
throughout  the  whole  course  of  that  opposition.  We  shall  then  see 
what  similarity  there  is  between  the  New  England  school  of  constitu 
tional  opinions  and  this  modern  Carolina  school.  The  gentleman,  I 
think,  read  a  petition  from  some  single  individual,  addressed  to  the 
legislature  of  Massachusetts,  asserting  the  Carolina  doctrine — that  is, 
the  right  of  state  interference  to  arrest  the  laws  of  the  Union.  The 
fate  of  that  petition  shows  the  sentiment  of  the  legislature.  It  met 
no  favor.  The  opinions  of  Massachusetts  were  otherwise.  They  had 
been  expressed  in  1798,  in  answer  to  the  resolutions  of  Virginia,  and 
she  did  not  depart  from  them,  nor  bend  them  to  the  times.  Misgov 
erned,  wronged,  oppressed,  as  she  felt  herself  to  be,  she  still  held  fast 
her  integrity  to  the  Union.  The  gentleman  may  find  in  her  proceed 
ings  much  evidence  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  measures  of  govern 
ment,  and  great  and  deep  dislike  to  the  embargo;  all  this  makes  the 
case  so  much  the  stronger  for  her;  for,  notwithstanding  all  this  dis- 


268  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

satisfaction  and  dislike,  she  claimed  no  right  still  to  sever  asunder  the 
bonds  of  the  Union.  There  was  heat  and  there  was  anger  in  her  po 
litical  feeling.  Be  it  so.  Her  heat  or  her  anger  did  not,  nevertheless, 
betray  her  into  infidelity  to  the  government.  The  gentleman  labors 
to  prove  that  she  disliked  the  embargo  as  much  as  South  Carolina  dis 
likes  the  tariff,  and  expressed  her  dislike  as  strongly.  Be  it  so;  but 
did  she  propose  the  Carolina  remedy?  Did  she  threaten  to  interfere, 
by  state  authority,  to  annul  the  laws  of  the  Union?  That  is  the  ques 
tion  for  the  gentleman's  consideration. 

No  doubt,  sir,  a  great  majority  of  the  people  of  New  England  con 
scientiously  believed  the  embargo  law  of  1807  unconstitutional — as 
conscientiously,  certainly,  as  the  people  of  South  Carolina  hold  that 
opinion  of  the  tariff.  They  reasoned  thus:  Congress  has  power  to 
regulate  commerce;  but  here  is  a  law,  they  said,  stopping  all  com 
merce,  and  stopping  it  indefinitely.  The  law  is  perpetual;  that  is,  it 
is  not  limited  in  point  of  time,  and  must  of  course  continue  till  it  shall 
be  repealed  by  some  other  law.  It  is  as  perpetual,  therefore,  as  the 
law  against  treason  or  murder.  Now,  is  this  regulating  commerce,  or 
destroying  it?  Is  it  guiding,  controlling,  giving  the  rule  to  commerce, 
as  a  subsisting  thing,  or  is  it  putting  an  end  to  it  altogether  ?  Nothing 
is  more  certain  than  that  a  majority  in  New  England  deemed  this  law 
a  violation  of  the  constitution.  The  very  case  required  by  the  gentle 
man  to  justify  state  interference  had  then  arisen.  Massachusetts  be 
lieved  this  law  to  be  "a  deliberate,  palpable,  and  dangerous  exercise 
of  a  power  not  granted  by  the  constitution."  Deliberate  it  was,  for  it 
was  long  continued;  palpable  she  thought  it,  as  no  words  in  the  con 
stitution  gave  the  power,  and  only  a  construction,  in  her  opinion  most 
violent,  raised  it;  dangerous  it  was,  since  it  threatened  utter  ruin  to 
her  most  important  interests.  Here,  then,  was  a  Carolina  case.  How 
did  Massachusetts  deal  with  it?  It  was,  as  she  thought,  a  plain, 
manifest,  palpable  violation  of  the  constitution;  and  it  brought  ruin  to 
her  doors.  Thousands  of  families,  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  in 
dividuals,  were  beggared  by  it.  While  she  saw  and  felt  all  this,  she 
saw  and  felt,  also,  that,  as  a  measure  of  national  policy,  it  was  per 
fectly  futile;  that  the  country  was  no  way  benefited  by  that  which 
caused  so  much  individual  distress;  that  it  was  efficient  only  for  the 
production  of  evil,  and  all  that  evil  inflicted  on  ourselves.  In  such  a 
case,  under  such  circumstances,  how  did  Massachusetts  demean  her 
self  ?  Sir,  she  remonstrated,  she  memorialized,  she  addressed  herself 
to  the  general  government,  not  exactly  "  with  the  concentrated  energy 
of  passion,"  but  with  her  strong  sense,  and  the  energy  of  sober  con 
viction.  But  she  did  not  interpose  the  arm  of  her  power  to  arrest  the 
law,  and  break  the  embargo.  Far  from  it.  Her  principles  bound  her 
to  two  things;  and  she  followed  her  principles,  lead  where  they  might. 
First,  to  submit  to  every  constitutional  law  of  Congress;  and  secondly, 
if  the  constitutional  validity  of  the  law  be  doubted,  to  refer  that  ques- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  269 

tion  to  the  decision  of  the  proper  tribunals.  The  first  principle  is  vain 
and  ineffectual  without  the  second.  A  majority  of  us  in  New  England 
believed  the  embargo  law  unconstitutional;  but  the  great  question 
was,  and  always  will  be,  in  such  cases,  Who  is  to  decide  this  ?  Who 
is  to  judge  between  the  people  and  the  government  ?  And,  sir,  it  is 
quite  plain,  that  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  confers  on  the 
government  itself,  to  be  exercised  by  its  appropriate  department,  this 
power  of  deciding,  ultimately  and  conclusively,  upon  the  just  extent 
of  its  own  authority.  If  this  had  not  been  done,  we  should  not  have 
advanced  a  single  step  beyond  the  old  confederation. 

Being  fully  of  opinion  that  the  embargo  law  was  unconstitutional, 
the  people  of  New  England  were  yet  equally  clear  in  the  opinion — it 
was  a  matter  they  did  not  doubt  upon — that  the  question,  after  all, 
must  be  decided  by  the  judicial  tribunals  of  the  United  States..  Be 
fore  those  tribunals,  therefore,  they  brought  the  question.  Under  the 
provisions  of  the  law  they  had  given  bonds,  to  millions  in  amount, 
and  which  were  alleged  to  be  forfeited.  They  suffered  the  bonds  to 
be  sued;  and  thus  raised  the  question.  In  the  old-fashioned  way  of 
settling  disputes  they  went  to  law.  The  case  came  to  hearing  and 
solemn  argument;  and  he  who  espoused  their  cause  and  stood  up  for 
them  against  the  validity  of  the  act,  was  none  other  than  that  great 
man,  of  whom  the  gentleman  has  made  honorable  mention,  Samuel 
Dexter.  He  was  then,  sir,  in  the  fulness  of  his  knowledge  and  the 
maturity  of  his  strength.  He  had  retired  from  long  and  distinguished 
public  service  here,  to  the  renewed  pursuit  of  professional  duties;  car 
rying  with  him  all  that  enlargement  and  expansion,  all  the  new 
strength  and  force,  which  an  acquaintance  with  the  more  general  sub 
jects  discussed  in  the  national  councils  is  capable  of  adding  to  profes 
sional  attainment,  in  a  mind  of  true  greatness  and  comprehension. 
He  was  a  lawyer,  and  he  was  also  a  statesman.  He  had  studied  the 
constitution,  when  he  filled  public  station,  that  he  might  defend  it;  he 
had  examined  its  principles,  that  he  might  maintain  them.  More 
than  all  men,  or  at  least  as  much  as  any  man,  he  was  attached  to  the 
general  government,  and  to  the  union  of  the  states.  His  feelings  and 
opinions  all  ran  in  that  direction.  A  question  of  constitutional  law, 
too,  was,  of  all  subjects,  that  one  which  was  best  suited  to  his  talents 
and  learning.  Aloof  from  technicality,  and  unfettered  by  artificial 
rule,  such  a  question  gave  opportunity  for  that  deep  and  clear  analysis, 
that  mighty  grasp  of  principle,  which  so  much  distinguished  his  higher 
efforts.  His  very  statement  was  argument;  his  inference  seemed  dem 
onstration.  The  earnestness  of  his  own  conviction  wrought  convic 
tion  in  others.  One  was  convinced,  and  believed,  and  assented, 
because  it  was  gratifying,  delightful,  to  think,  and  feel,  and  believe, 
in  unison  with  an  intellect  of  such  evident  superiority. 

Mr.  Dexter,  sir,  such  as  I  have  described  him,  argued  in  the  New 
England  cause.  He  put  into  his  effort  his  whole  heart,  as  well  as  all 


270  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

the  powers  of  his  understanding;  for  he  had  avowed,  in  the  most  pub 
lic  manner,  his  entire  concurrence  with  his  neighbors,  on  the  point 
in  dispute.  He  argued  the  cause;  it  was  lost,  and  New  England 
submitted.  The  established  tribunals  pronounced  the  law  constitu 
tional,  and  New  England  acquiesced.  Now,  sir,  is  not  this  the  exact 
opposite  of  the  doctrine  of  the  gentleman  from  South  Carolina? 
According  to  him,  instead  of  referring  to  the  judicial  tribunal,  we 
should  have  broken  up  the  embargo,  by  laws  of  our  own;  we  should 
have  repealed  it,  quoad  New  England ;  for  we  had  a  strong,  palpable, 
and  oppressive  case.  Sir,  we  believed  the  embargo  unconstitutional  ; 
but  still,  that  was  matter  of  opinion,  and  who  was  to  decide  it?  We 
thought  it  a  clear  case;  but,  nevertheless,  we  did  not  take  the  law  into 
our  hands,  because  we  did  not  wish  to  bring  about  a  revolution,  nor  to 
break  up  the  Union;  for  I  maintain,  that  between  submission  to  the  de 
cision  of  the  constituted  tribunals,  and  revolution,  or  disunion,  there  is 
no  middle  ground — there  is  no  ambiguous  condition,  half  allegiance  and 
half  rebellion.  There  is  no  treason,  madcosy.  And,  sir,  how  futile, 
how  very  futile  it  is,  to  admit  the  right  of  state  interference,  and  then 
to  attempt  to  save  it  from  the  character  of  unlawful  resistance,  by 
adding  terms  of  qualification  to  the  causes  and  occasions,  leaving  all 
the  qualifications,  like  the  case  itself,  in  the  discretion  of  the  state 
governments.  It  must  be  a  clear  case,  it  is  said  ;  a  deliberate  case;  a 
palpable  case;  a  dangerous  case.  But,  then,  the  state  is  still  left  at 
liberty  to  decide  for  herself  what  is  clear,  what  is  deliberate,  what  is 
palpable,  what  is  dangerous. 

Do  adjectives  and  epithets  avail  any  thing  ?  Sir,  the  human  mind 
is  so  constituted,  that  the  merits  of  both  sides  of  a  controversy  appear 
very  ciear,  and  very  palpable,  to  those  who  respectively  espouse  them, 
and  both  sides  usually  grow  clearer,  as  the  controversy  advances. 
South  Carolina  sees  unconstitutionality  in  the  tariff — she  sees  oppres 
sion  there,  also,  and  she  sees  danger.  Pennsylvania,  with  a  vision 
not  less  sharp,  looks  at  the  same  tariff,  and  sees  no  such  thing  in  it — 
she  sees  it  all  constitutional,  all  useful,  all  safe.  The  faith  of  South 
Carolina  is  strengthened  by  opposition,  and  she  now  not  only  sees, 
but  resolves,  that  the  tariff  is  palpably  unconstitutional,  oppressive, 
and  dangerous;  but  Pennsylvania,  not  to  be  behind  her  neighbors,  and 
equally  willing  to  strengthen  her  own  faith  by  a  confident  asseveration, 
resolves  also,  and  gives  to  every  warm  affirmative  of  South  Carolina, 
a  plain,  downright  Pennsylvania  negative.  South  Carolina,  to  show 
the  strength  and  unity  of  her  opinions,  brings  her  Assembly  to  a 
unanimity,  within  seven  votes;  Pennsylvania,  not  to  be  outdone  in 
this  respect  more  than  others,  reduces  her  dissentient  fraction  to  five 
votes.  Now,  sir,  again  I  ask  the  gentleman,  what  is  to  be  done  ? 
Are  these  states  both  right  ?  Is  he  bound  to  consider  them  both 
right  ?  If  not,  which  is  in  the  wrong  ?  or,  rather,  which  has  the  best 
right  to  decide  ? 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  271 

And  if  he,  and  if  I,  are  not  to  know  what  the  constitution  means, 
and  what  it  is,  till  those  two  state  legislatures,  and  the  twenty-two 
others,  shall  agree  in  its  construction,  what  have  we  sworn  to,  when 
we  have  sworn  to  maintain  it  ?  I  was  forcibly  struck,  sir,  with  one 
reflection,  as  the  gentleman  went  on  with  his  speech.  He  quoted 
Mr.  Madison's  resolutions  to  prove  that  a  state  may  interfere,  in  a 
case  of  deliberate,  palpable,  and  dangerous  exercise  of  a  power  not 
granted.  The  honorable  member  supposes  the  tariff  law  to  be  such 
an  exercise  of  power,  and  that,  consequently,  a  case  has  arisen  in 
which  the  state  may,  if  it  see  fit,  interfere  by  its  own  law.  Now,  it 
so  happens,  nevertheless,  that  Mr.  Madison  himself  deems  this  same 
tariff  law  quite  constitutional.  Instead  of  a  clear  and  palpable  viola 
tion,  it  is,  in  his  judgement,  no  violation  at  all.  So  that,  while  they 
use  his  authority  for  a  hypothetical  case,  they  reject  it  in  the  very 
case  before  them.  All  this,  sir,  shows  the  inherent  futility — I  had 
almost  used  a  stronger  word — of  conceding  this  power  of  interfer 
ence  to  the  states,  and  then  attempting  to  secure  it  from  abuse  by 
imposing  qualifications  of  which  the  states  themselves  are  to  judge. 
One  of  two  things  is  true:  either  the  laws  of  the  Union  are  beyond 
the  control  of  the  states,  or  else  AVC  have  no  constitution  of  general 
government,  and  are  thrust  back  again  to  the  days  of  the  confederacy. 

Let  me  here  say,  sir,  that  if  the  gentleman's  doctrine  had  been  re 
ceived  and  acted  upon  in  New  England,  in  the  times  of  the  embargo 
and  non-intercourse,  we  should  probably  not  now  have  been  here. 
The  government  would  very  likely  have  gone  to  pieces  and  crumbled 
into  dust.  No  stronger  case  can  ever  arise  than  existed  under  those 
laws;  no  states  can  ever  entertain  a  clearer  conviction  than  the  New 
England  States  then  entertained  ;  and  if  they  had  been  under  the 
influence  of  that  heresy  of  opinion,  as  I  must  call  it,  which  the  hon 
orable  member  espouses,  this  Union  would,  in  all  probability,  have 
been  scattered  to  the  four  winds.  I  ask  the  gentleman,  therefore,  to 
apply  his  principles  to  that  case;  I  ask  him  to  come  forth  and  declare 
whether,  in  his  opinion,  the  New  England  States  would  have  been 
justified  in  interfering  to  break  up  the  embargo  system,  under  the 
conscientious  opinions  which  they  held  upon  it.  Had  they  a  right 
to  annul  that  law  ?  Does  he  admit,  or  deny  ?  If  that  which  is  thought 
palpably  unconstitutional  in  South  Carolina  justified  that  state  in 
arresting  the  progress  of  the  law,  tell  me  whether  that  which  was 
thought  palpably  unconstitutional  also  in  Massachusetts  would  have 
justified  her  in  doing  the  same  thing.  Sir,  I  deny  the  whole  doctrine. 
It  has  not  a  foot  of  ground  in  the  constitution  to  stand  on.  No  public 
man  of  reputation  ever  advanced  it  in  Massachusetts,  in  the  warmest 
times,  or  could  maintain  himself  upon  it  there  at  any  time. 

I  wish  now,  sir,  to  make  a  remark  upon  the  Virginia  resolutions  of 
1798.  I  cannot  undertake  to  say  how  these  resolutions  were  under 
stood  by  those  who  passed  them.  Their  language  is  not  a  little 


272  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

indefinite.  In  the  case  of  the  exercise,  by  Congress,  of  a  dangerous 
power,  not  granted  to  them,  the  resolutions  assert  the  right,  on  the 
part  of  the  state,  to  interfere,  and  arrest  the  progress  of  the  evil. 
This  is  susceptible  of  more  than  one  interpretation.  It  may  mean  no 
more  than  that  the  states  may  interfere  by  complaint  and  remon 
strance,  or  by  proposing  to  the  people  an  alteration  of  the  federal 
constitution.  This  would  all  be  quite  unobjectionable;  or  it  may  be 
that  no  more  is  meant  than  to  assert  the  general  right  of  revolution, 
as  against  all  governments,  in  cases  of  intolerable  oppression.  This 
no  one  doubts;  and  this,  in  my  opinion,  is  all  that  he  who  framed 
these  resolutions  could  have  meant  by  it;  for  I  shall  not  readily  be 
lieve  that  he  was  ever  of  opinion  that  a  state,  under  the  constitu 
tion,  and  in  conformity  with  it,  could,  tipon  the  ground  of  her  own 
opinion  of  its  unconstitutionality,  however  clear  and  palpable  she 
might  think  the  case,  annul  a  law  of  Congress,  so  far  as  it  should 
operate  on  herself,  by  her  own  legislative  power. 

I  must  now  beg  to  ask,  sir,  Whence  is  this  supposed  right  of  the 
states  derived?  Where  do  they  get  the  power  to  interfere  with  the  laws 
of  the  Union  ?  Sir,  the  opinion  which  the  honorable  gentleman  main 
tains  is  a  notion  founded  in  a  total  misapprehension,  in  my  judgment, 
of  the  origin  of  this  government,  and  of  the  foundation  on  which  it 
stands.  I  hold  it  to  be  a  popular  government,  erected  by  the  people, 
those  who  administer  it  responsible  to  the  people,  and  itself  capable  of 
being  amended  and  modified,  just  as  the  people  may  choose  it  should  be. 
It  is  as  popular,  just  as  truly  emanating  from  the  people,  as  the  state 
governments.  It  is  created  for  one  purpose  ;  the  state  governments  for 
another.  It  has  its  own  powers  ;  they  have  theirs.  There  is  no  more 
authority  with  them  to  arrest  the  operation  of  a  law  of  Congress,  than 
with  Congress  to  arrest  the  operation  of  their  laws.  We  are  here  to  ad 
minister  a  constitution  emanating  immediately  from  the  people,  and 
trusted  by  them  to  our  administration.  It  is  not  the  creature  of  the 
state  governments.  It  is  of  no  moment  to  the  argument  that  certain 
acts  of  the  state  legislatures  are  necessary  to  fill  our  seats  in  this  body. 
That  is  not  one  of  their  original  state  powers,  a  part  of  the  sovereignty 
of  the  state.  It  is  a  duty  which  the  people,  by  the  constitution  itself, 
have  imposed  on  the  state  legislatures,  and  which  they  might  have  left  to 
be  performed  elsewhere,  if  they  had  seen  fit.  So  they  have  left  the 
choice  of  president  with  electors  ;  but  all  this  does  not  affect  the  propo 
sition  that  this  whole  government — president,  Senate,  and  House  of 
Representatives — is  a  popular  government.  It  leaves  it  still  all  its  popu- 
ular  character.  The  governor  of  a  state  (in  some  of  the  states)  is  chosen 
not  directly  by  the  people,  but  by  those  who  are  chosen  by  the  people 
for  the  purpose  of  performing,  among  other  duties,  that  of  electing  a 
governor.  Is  the  government  of  the  state  on  that  account  not  a  popular 
government?  This  government,  sir,  is  the  independent  offspring  of  the 
popular  will.  It  is  not  the  creature  of  state  legislatures,  nay,  more, 


DA  KIEL    WEBSTER.  273 

if  the  whole  truth  must  be  told,  the  people  brought  it  into  existence,  es 
tablished  it,  and  have  hitherto  supported  it,  for  the  very  purpose, 
amongst  others,  of  imposing  certain  salutary  restraints  on  state  sove 
reignties.  The  states  cannot  now  make  war  ;  they  cannot  contract 
alliances  ;  they  cannot  make,  each  for  itself,  separate  regulations  of 
commerce  ;  they  cannot  lay  imposts  ;  they  cannot  coin  money.  If  this 
constitution,  sir,  be  the  creature  of  state  legislatures,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  it  has  obtained  a  strange  control  over  the  volitions  of  its  creators. 

The  people  then,  sir,  erected  this  government.  They  gave  it  a  con 
stitution,  and  in  that  constitution  they  have  enumerated  the  powers 
which  they  bestow  on  it.  They  have  made  it  a  limited  government. 
They  have  defined  its  authority.  They  have  restrained  it  to  the  exercise 
of  such  powers  as  are  granted  ;  and  all  others,  they  declare,  are  reserved 
to  the  states  or  the  people.  But,  sir,  they  have  not  stopped  here.  If 
they  had,  they  would  have  accomplished  but  half  their  work.  No 
definition  can  be  so  clear  as  to  avoid  possibility  of  doubt  ;  no  limitation 
So  precise  as  to  exclude  all  uncertainty.  Who,  then,  slieill  construe  this 
grant  of  the  people  1  Who  shall  interpret  their  will,  where  it  may  be 
supposed  they  have  left  it  doubtful  1  With  whom  do  they  leave  this 
ultimate  right  of  deciding  on  the  powers  of  the  government  ?  Sir,  they 
have  settled  all  this  in  the  fullest  manner.  They  have  left  it  with  the 
government  itself,  in  its  appropriate  branches.  Sir,  the  very  chief  end, 
the  main  design  for  which  the  whole  constitution  was  framed  and 
adopted,  was  to  establish  a  government  that  should  not  be  obliged 
to  act  through  state  agency,  or  depend  on  state  opinion  and  discretion. 
The  people  had  had  quite  enough  of  that  kind  of  government  under 
the  confederacy.  Under  that  system,  the  legal  action — the  applicatign 
of  law  to  individuals — belonged  exclusively  to  the  states.  Congress 
could  only  recommend — their  acts  were  not  of  binding  force  till  the 
states  had  adopted  and  sanctioned  them.  Are  we  in  that  condition  still  ? 
Are  we  yet  at  the  mercy  of  state  discretion  and  state  construction  1 
Sir,  if  we  are,  then  vain  will  be  our  attempt  to  maintain  the  con- 
j>tiUition  uncle.:  which  we  sit. 

But,  sir,  the  people  have  wisely  provided,  in  the  constitution  itself,  a 
proper  suitable  mode  and  tribunal  for  settling  questions  of  constitutional 
law.  There  are,  in  the  constitution,  grants  of  powers  to  Congress,  and 
restrictions  on  those  powers.  There  are  also  prohibitions  on  the  states. 
Some  authority  must  therefore  necessarily  exist,  having  the  ultimate 
jurisdiction  to  fix  and  ascertain  the  interpretation  of  these  grants,  re 
strictions,  and  prohibitions.  The  constitution  has  itself  pointed  out, 
ordained,  and  established  that  authority.  How  has  it  accomplished  this 
great  and  essential  end?  By  declaring,  sir.  that  "  the  constitution  and 
the  laws  of  the  United  States,  made  in  pursuance  thereof,  shall  be  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land,  anything  in  the  constitution  or  laws  of  any  state 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding." 

This,  sir,  was  the  first  great  step.     By  this,  the  supremacy  of  the  con- 


274  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

stitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States  is  declared.  The  people  so 
will  it.  No  state  law  is  to  be  valid  which  comes  in  conflict  with  the  con 
stitution  or  any  law  of  the  United  States.  But  who  shall  decide  this 
question  of  interference  ?  To  whom  lies  the  last  appeal  ?  This,  sir,  the 
constitution  itself  decides  also,  by  declaring  "  that  the  judicial  power 
shall  extend  to  all  cases  arising  under  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the 
United  States."  These  two  provisions,  sir,  cover  the  whole  ground. 
They  are,  in  truth,  the  keystone  of  the  arch.  With  these  it  is  a  constitu 
tion  ;  without  them  it  is  a  confederacy.  In  pursuance  of  these  clear  and 
express  provisions,  Congress  established,  at  its  very  first  session,  in  the 
judicial  act,  a  mode  for  carrying  them  into  full  effect,  and  for  bringing 
all  questions  of  constitutional  power  to  the  final  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court.  It  then,  sir,  became  a  government.  It  then  had  the  means  of 
self-protection  ;  and  but  for  this,  it  would,  in  all  probability,  have  been 
now  among  things  which  are  passed.  Having  constituted  the  govern 
ment,  and  declared  its  powers,  the  people  have  further  said,  that  since 
somebody  must  decide  on  the  extent  of  these  powers,  the  government 
shall  itself  decide — subject  always,  like  other  popular  governments,  to 
its  responsibility  to  the  people.  And  now,  sir,  I  repeat,  how  is  it  that  a 
state  legislature  acquires  any  right  to  interfere  ?  Who,  or  what,  gives 
them  the  right  to  say  to  the  people,  "  We,  who  are  your  agents  and  ser 
vants  for  one  purpose,  will  undertake  to  decide,  that  your  other  agents 
and  servants  appointed  by  you  for  another  purpose,  have  transcended 
the  authority  you  gave  them?"  The  reply  would  be,  I  think,  not  im 
pertinent,  "  \Vho  made  you  a  judge  over  another's  servants  ?  To  their 
own  masters  they  stand  or  fall.'' 

Sir,  I  deny  this  power  of  state  legislatures  altogether.  It  cannot 
stand  the  test  of  examination.  Gentlemen  may  say,  that,  in  an  ex 
treme  case,  a  state  government  might  protect  the  people  from  intol- 
lerable  oppression.  Sir,  in  such  a  case  the  people  might  protect  them 
selves,  without  the  aid  of  the  state  governments.  Such  a  case  warrants 
revolution.  It  must  make,  when  it  comes,  a  law  for  itself.  A  nullifying 
act  of  a  state  legislature  cannot  alter  the  case,  nor  make  resistance  any 
more  lawful  In  maintaining  these  sentiments,  sir,  I  am  but  assert 
ing  the  rights  of  the  people  I  state  what  they  have  declared,  and 
insist  on  their  right  to  declare  it.  They  have  chosen  to  repose  this 
power  in  the  general  government,  and  I  think  it  my  duty  to  support 
it,  like  other  constitutional  powers. 

For  myself,  sir,  I  doubt  the  jurisdiction  of  South  Carolina,  or  any 
other  state,  to  prescribe  my  constitutional  duty,  or  to  settle,  between 
me  and  the  people,  the  validity  of  laws  of  Congress  for  which  I  have 
voted.  I  decline  her  umpirage.  I  have  not  sworn  to  support  the 
constitution  according  to  her  construction  of  its  clauses.  I  have  not 
stipulated,  by  my  oath  of  office  or  otherwise,  to  come  under  any  re 
sponsibility,  except  to  the  people  and  those  whom  they  have  appointed 
to  pass  upon  the  question,  whether  the  laws,  supported  by  my  votes, 


DAXIEL    WEBSTER.  275 

conform  to  the  constitution  of  the  country.  And,  sir,  if  we  look  to  the 
general  nature  of  the  case,  could  any  thing  have  been  more  preposter 
ous  than  to  have  made  a  government  for  the  whole  Union,  and  yet 
left  its  powers  subject,  not  to  one  interpretation,  but  to  thirteen  or 
twenty-four  interpretations  ?  Instead  of  one  tribunal,  established  by 
all,  responsible  to  all,  with  power  to  decide  for  all,  shall  constitutional 
questions  be  left  to  four  and  twenty  popular  bodies,  each  at  liberty  to 
decide  for  itself,  and  none  bound  to  respect  the  decision  of  others;  and 
each  at  liberty,  too,  to  give  a  new  construction,  on  every  new  election 
of  its  own  members  ?  Would  any  thing,  with  such  a  principle  in  it,  or 
rather  with  such  a  destitution  of  all  principle,  be  fit  to  be  called  a  gov 
ernment  ?  No,  sir.  It  should  not  be  denominated  a  constitution.  It 
should  be  called,  rather,  a  collection  of  topics  for  everlasting  contro 
versy;  heads  of  debate  for  a  disputatious  people.  It  would  not  be  a 
government.  It  would  not  be  adequate  to  any  practical  good,  nor  fit 
for  any  country  to  live  under.  To  avoid  all  possibility  of  being  mis 
understood,  allow  me  to  repeat  again,  in  the  fullest  manner,  that  I 
claim  no  powers  for  the  government  by  forced  or  unfair  construction. 
I  admit  that  it  is  a  government  of  strictly  limited  powers,  of 
enumerated,  specified  and  particularized  powers  ;  and  that  what 
soever  is  not  granted  is  withheld.  But,  notwithstanding  all  this, 
and  however  the  grant  of  powers  may  be  expressed,  its  limits  and 
extent  may  yet,  in  some  cases,  admit  of  doubt;  and  the  general  gov 
ernment  would  be  good  for  nothing,  it  would  be  incapable  of  long 
existence,  if  some  mode  had  not  been  provided  in  which  those 
doubts,  as  they  should  arise,  might  be  peaceably,  but  authoritatively, 
solved. 

And  now,  Mr.  President,  let  me  run  the  honorable  gentleman's  doc 
trine  a  little  into  its  practical  application.  Let  us  look  at  his  probable 
modus  operandi.  If  a  thing  can  be  done,  an  ingenious  man  can  tell 
how  it  is  to  be  done.  Now,  I  wish  to  be  informed  how  this  state 
interference  is  to  be  put  in  practice.  We  will  take  the  existing  case  of 
the  tariff  law.  South  Carolina  is  said  to  have  made  up  her  opinion 
upon  it.  If  we  do  not  repeal  it  (as  we  probably  shall  not),  she  will 
then  apply  to  the  case  the  remedy  of  her  doctrine.  She  will,  we  must 
suppose,  pass  a  law  of  her  legislature,  declaring  the  several  acts  of 
Congress,  usually  called  the  tariff  laws,  null  and  void,  so  far  as  they 
respect  South  Carolina,  or  the  citizens  thereof.  So  far,  all  is  a  paper 
transaction,  and  easy  enough.  But  the  collector  at  Charleston  is  col 
lecting  the  duties  imposed  by  these  tariff  laws — he,  therefore,  must  be 
stopped.  The  collector  will  seize  the  goods  if  the  tariff  duties  are  not 
paid.  The  state  authorities  will  undertake  their  rescue:  the  marshal, 
with  his  posse,  will  come  to  the  collector's  aid;  and  here  the  contest 
begins.  The  militia  of  the  state  will  be  called  out  to  sustain  the  nulli 
fying  act.  They  will  march,  sir,  under  a  very  gallant  leader;  for  I 
believe  the  honorable  member  himself  commands  the  militia  of  that 


276  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

part  of  the  state.  He  will  raise  the  nullifying  act  on  his  standard,  and 
spread  it  out  as  his  banner.  It  will  have  a  preamble,  bearing  that 
the  tariff  laws  are  palpable,  deliberate,  and  dangerous  violations  of  the 
constitution,  He  will  proceed,  with  his  banner  flying,  to  the  custom 
house  in  Charleston, — 

"  all  the  while 
Sonorous  metal  blowing  martial  sounds." 

Arrived  at  the  custom  house,  he  will  tell  the  collector  that  he  must  col 
lect  no  more  duties  under  any  of  the  tariff  laws.  This  he  will  be  some 
what  puzzled  to  say,  by  the  way,  with  a  grave  countenance,  consider 
ing  what  hand  South  Carolina  herself  had  in  that  of  1816.  But,  sir, 
the  collector  would,  probably,  not  desist  at  his  bidding.  Here  would 
ensue  a  pause;  for  they  say,  that  a  certain  stillness  precedes  the  tem 
pest.  Before  this  military  array  should  fall  on  the  custom  house,  col 
lector,  clerks,  and  all,  it  is  very  probable  some  of  those  composing  it 
would  request  of  their  gallant  commander-in-chief  to  be  informed  a 
little  upon  the  point  of  law;  for  they  have  doubtless  a  just  respect  for 
his  opinion  as  a  lawyer,  as  well  as  for  his  bravery  as  a  soldier.  They 
know  he  has  read  Blackstone  and  the  constitution,  as  well  as  Turenne 
and  Vauban.  They  would  ask  him,  therefore,  something  concerning 
their  rights  in  this  matter.  They  would  inquire  whether  it  was  not 
somewhat  dangerous  to  resist  a  law  of  the  United  States.  What  would 
be  the  nature  of  their  offence,  they  would  wish  to  learn,  if  they,  by  mili 
tary  force  and  array,  resisted  the  execution  in  Carolina  of  a  law  of  the 
United  States,  and  it  should  turn  out,  after  all,  that  the  law  was  con 
stitutional.  He  would  answer,  of  course,  treason.  No  lawyer  could 
give  any  other  answer.  John  Fries,  he  would  tell  them,  had  learned 
that  some  years  ago.  How  then,  they  would  ask,  do  you  propose  to 
defend  us  ?  We  are  not  afraid  of  bullets,  but  treason  has  a  way  of 
taking  people  off  that  we  do  not  much  relish.  How  do  you  propose 
to  defend  us  ?  "  Look  at  my  floating  banner,"  he  would  reply;  "sec 
there  the  nullifying  law  !"  Is  it  your  opinion,  gallant  commander,  they 
\vould  then  say,  that  if  we  should  be  indicted  for  treason,  that  same 
iioating  banner  of  yours  would  make  a  good  plea  in  bar?  "South 
Carolina  is  a  sovereign  state,"  he  would  reply.  That  is  true;  but 
would  the  judge  admit  our  plea?  "These  tariff  laws,"  he  would  re 
peat,  "are  unconstitutional,  palpably,  deliberately,  dangerously." 
That  all  may  be  so;  but  if  the  tribunals  should  not  happen  to  be  of 
that  opinion,  shall  we  swing  for  it?  We  are  ready  to  die  for  our 
country,  but  it  is  rather  an  awkward  business,  this  dying  without 
touching  the  ground.  After  all,  this  is  a  sort  of  hemp-tax,  worse  thai? 
any  part  of  the  tariff. 

Mr.  President,  the  honorable  gentleman  would  be  in  a  dilemma 
like  that  of  another  great  general.  He  would  have  a  knot  before  him 
which  he  could  not  untie.  He  must  cut  it  with  his  sword.  He  must 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  ^  277 

say  to  his  followers,  Defend  yourselves  with  your  bayonets;  and  this 
is  war — civil  war. 

Direct  collision,  therefore,  between  force  and  force,  is  the  unavoida 
ble  result  of  that  remedy  for  the  revision  of  unconstitutional  laws 
which  the  gentleman  contends  for.  It  must  happen  in  the  very 
first  case  to  which  it  is  applied.  Is  not  this  the  plain  result?  To 
resist,  by  force,  the  execution  of  a  law,  generally,  is  treason.  Can 
the  courts  of  the  United  States  take  notice  of  the  indulgence  of  a  state 
to  commit  treason  ?  The  common  saying,  that  a  state  cannot  commit 
treason  herself,  is  nothing  to  the  purpose.  Can  it  authorize  others  to 
do  it?  If  John  Fries  had  produced  an  act  of  Pennsylvania,  annulling 
the  law  of  Congress,  would  it  have  helped  his  case  ?  Talk  about  it  as 
we  will,  these  doctrines  go  the  length  of  revolution.  They  are  in 
compatible  with  any  peaceable  administration  of  the  government. 
They  lead  directly  to  disunion  and  civil  commotion;  and  therefore  it 
is,  that  at  the  commencement,  when  they  are  first  found  to  be  main 
tained  by  respectable  men  and  in  a  tangible  form,  that  I  enter  my 
public  protest  against  them  all. 

The  honorable  gentleman  argues,  that  if  this  government  be  the 
sole  judge  of  the  extent  of  its  own  powers,  whether  that  right  of  judg 
ing  be  in  Congress  or  the  Supreme  Court,  it  equally  subverts  state 
sovereignty.  This  the  gentleman  sees,  or  thinks  he  sees,  although  he 
cannot  perceive  how  the  right  of  judging,  in  this  manner,  if  left  to  the 
exercise  of  state  legislatures,  has  any  tendency  to  subvert  the  govern 
ment  of  the  Union.  The  gentleman's  opinion  may  be  that  the  right 
ought  not  to  have  been  lodged  with  the  general  government;  he  may 
like  better  such  a  constitution  as  we  should  have  under  the  right  of 
state  interference;  but  I  ask  him  to  meet  me  on  the  plain  matter  of 
fact — I  ask  him  to  meet  me  on  the  constitution  itself — I  ask  him  if  the 
power  is  not  found  there — clearly  and  visibly  found  there. 

But,  sir,  what  is  this  danger,  and  what  the  grounds  of  it  ?  Let  it  te 
remembered,  that  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  is  not  unaltera 
ble.  It  is  to  continue  in  its  present  form  no  longer  than  the  people 
who  established  it  shall  choose  to  continue  it.  If  they  shall  become 
convinced  that  they  have  made  an  injudicious  or  inexpedient  partition 
and  distribution  of  power  between  the  state  governments  and  the 
general  government,  they  can  alter  that  distribution  at  will. 

If  anything  be  found  in  the  national  constitution,  either  by  original 
provision  or  subsequent  interpretation,  which  ought  not  to  be  in  it, 
the  people  know  how  to  get  rid  of  it.  If  any  construction  be  estab 
lished,  unacceptable  to  them,  so  as  to  become,  practically,  a  part  of 
the  constitution,  they  will  amend  it  at  their  own  sovereign  pleasure. 
But  while  the  people  choose  to  maintain  it  as  it  is,  while  they  are  sat 
isfied  with  it,  and  refuse  to  change  it,  who  has  given,  or  who  can  give, 
to  the  state  legislatures  a  right  to  alter  it,  either  by  interference,  con 
struction,  or  otherwise  ?  Gentlemen  do  not  seem  to  recollect  that  the 


278  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

people  have  any  power  to  do  anything  for  themselves;  they  imagine 
there  is  no  safety  for  them  any  longer  than  they  are  under  the  close 
guardianship  of  the  state  legislatures.  Sir,  the  people  have  not  trusted 
their  safety,  in  regard  to  the  general  constitution,  to  these  hands. 
They  have  required  other  security,  and  taken  other  bonds.  They 
have  chosen  to  trust  themselves,  first,  to  the  plain  words  of  the  in 
strument,  and  to  such  construction  as  the  government  itself,  in  doubt 
ful  cases,  should  put  on  its  own  powers,  under  their  oaths  of  office, 
and  subject  to  their  responsibility  to  them;  just  as  the  people  of  a 
state  trust  their  own  state  governments  with  a  similar  power.  Sec 
ondly,  they  have  reposed  their  trust  in  the  efficacy  of  frequent  elec 
tions,  and  in  their  own  power  to  remove  their  own  servants  and 
agents,  whenever  they  see  cause.  Thirdly  they  have  reposed  trust  in 
the  judicial  power,  which  in  order  that  it  might  be  trustworthy,  they 
have  made  as  respectable,  as  disinterested,  and  as  independent  as 
practicable.  Fourthly,  they  have  seen  fit  to  rely,  in  case  of  necessity, 
or  high  expediency,  on  their  known  and  admitted  power  to  alter  or 
amend  the  constitution,  peaceably  and  quietly,  whenever  experience 
shall  point  out  defects  or  imperfections.  And  finally,  the  people  of 
the  United  States  have  at  no  time,  in  no  way,  directly  or  indirectly, 
authorized  any  state  legislature  to  construe  or  interpret  their  instru 
ment  of  government;  much  less  to  interfere,  by  their  own  power,  to 
arrest  its  course  and  operation. 

If,  sir,  the  people,  in  these  respects,  had  done  otherwise  than  they 
have  done,  their  constitution  could  neither  have  been  preserved,  nor 
would  it  have  been  worth  preserving.  And  if  its  plain  provision  shall 
now  be  disregarded,  and  these  new  doctrines  interpolated  in  it,  it  will 
become  as  feeble  and  helpless  a  being  as  enemies,  whether  early  or 
more  recent,  could  possibly  desire.  It  will  exist  in  every  state,  but 
as  a  poor  dependant  on  state  permission.  It  must  borrow  leave  to  be, 
and  will  be,  no  longer  than  state  pleasure,  or  state  discretion,  sees  fit 
to  grant  the  indulgence,  and  to  prolong  its  poor  existence. 

But,  sir,  although  there  are  fears,  there  are  hopes  also.  The  people 
have  preserved  this,  their  own  chosen  constitution,  for  forty  years, 
and  have  seen  their  happiness,  prosperity,  and  renown  grow  with  its 
growth  and  strengthen  with  its  strength.  They  are  now,  generally, 
strongly  attached  to  it.  Overthrown  by  direct  assault  it  cannot  be; 
evaded,  undermined,  nullified,  it  will  not  be,  if  we,  and  those  who 
shall  succeed  us  here,  as  agents  and  representatives  of  the  people, 
shall  conscientiously  and  vigilantly  discharge  the  two  great  branches 
of  our  public  trust — faithfully  to  preserve  and  wisely  to  administer  it. 

Mr.  President,  I  have  thus  stated  the  reasons  of  my  dissent  to  the 
doctrines  which  have  been  advanced  and  maintained.  I  am  conscious 
of  having  detained  you,  and  the  Senate,  much  too  long.  I  was  drawn 
into  the  debate,  with  no  previous  deliberation  such  as  is  suited  to  the 
discussion  of  so  grave  and  important  a  subject.  But  it  is  a  subject  of 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  *79 

which  my  heart  is  full,  and  I  have  not  been  willing  to  suppress  the 
utterance  of  its  spontaneous  sentiments. 

I  cannot,  even  now,  persuade  myself  to  relinquish  it,  without  express 
ing,  once  more,  my  deep  conviction,  that  since  it  respects  nothing  less 
than  the  union  of  the  states,  it  is  of  most  vital  and  essential  importance 
to  the  public  happiness.  I  profess,  sir,  in  my  career  hitherto,  to  have 
kept  steadily  in  view  the  prosperity  and  honor  of  the  whole  country, 
and  the  preservation  of  our  Federal  Union.  It  is  to  that  Union  we 
owe  our  safety  at  home,  and  our  consideration  and  dignity  abroad. 
It  is  to  that  Union  that  we  are  chiefly  indebted  for  whatever  makes  us 
most  proud  of  our  country.  That  Union  we  reached  only  by  the  dis 
cipline  of  our  virtues  in  the  severe  school  of  adversity.  It  had  its 
origin  in  the  necessities  of  disordered  finance,  prostrate  commerce, 
and  ruined  credit.  Under  its  benign  influences,  these  great  interests 
immediately  awoke,  as  from  the  dead,  and  sprang  forth  with  newness 
of  life.  Every  year  of  its  duration  has  teemed  with  fresh  proofs  of  its 
utility  and  its  blessings;  and  although  our  territory  has  stretched  out 
wider  and  wider  and  our  population  spread  farther  and  farther,  they 
have  not  outrun  its  protection  or  its  benefits.  It  has  been  to  us  all  a 
copious  fountain  of  national,  social,  personal  happiness.  I  have  not 
allowed  myself,  sir,  to  look  beyond  the  Union,  to  see  what  might  lie 
hidden  in  the  dark  recesses  behind.  I  have  not  coolly  weighed  the 
chances  of  preserving  liberty,  when  the  bonds  that  unite  us  together 
shall  be  broken  asunder.  I  have  not  accustomed  myself  to  hang  over 
the  precipice  of  disunion,  to  see  whether,  with  my  short  sight,  I  can 
fathom  the  depth  of  the  abyss  below;  nor  could  I  regard  him  as  a  safe 
counsellor  in  the  affairs  of  this  government,  whose  thoughts  should  be 
mainly  bent  on  considering,  not  how  the  Union  should  be  best  pre 
served,  but  how  tolerable  might  be  the  condition  of  the  people  when 
it  shall  be  broken  up  and  destroyed.  While  the  Union  lasts,  we  have 
high,  exciting,  gratifying  prospects  spread  out  before  us,  for  us  and 
our  children.  Beyond  that  I  seek  not  to  penetrate  the  veil.  God 
grant  that,  in  my  day  at  least,  that  curtain  may  not  rise.  God  grant 
that  on  my  vision  never  may  be  opened  what  lies  behind.  When  my 
eyes  shall  be  turned  to  behold,  for  the  last  time,  the  sun  in  heaven, 
may  I  not  see  him  shining  on  the  broken  and  dishonored  fragments 
of  a  once  glorious  Union;  on  states  dissevered,  discordant,  belliger 
ent;  on  a  land  rent  with  civil  feuds,  or  drenched,  it  may  be,  in  frater 
nal  blood!  Let  their  last  feeble  and  lingering  glance,  rather,  behold 
the  gorgeous  ensign  of  the  republic,  now  known  and  honored  through 
out  the  earth,  still  full  high  advanced,  its  arms  and  trophies  streaming 
in  their  original  lustre,  not  a  stripe  erased  or  polluted,  not  a  single 
star  obscured — bearing  for  its  motto  no  such  miserable  interrogatory 
as,  What  is  all  this  worth  ?  nor  those  other  words  of  delusion  and 
folly,  Liberty  first,  and  Union  afterwards;  but  everywhere,  spread  all 
over  in  characters  of  living  light,  blazing  on  all  its  ample  folds,  as  they 
A  P.-10. 


2 So  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

float  over  the  sea  and  over  the  land,  and  in  every  wind  under  the 
whole  heavens,  that  oth,er  sentiment,  dear  to  every  true  American 
heart — Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  forever,  one  and  inseparable! 


SECOND    CENTENNIAL    OF   BOSTON. 
JOSIAH   QUINCY,  JR. 
Boston,  September  17,  1830. 

If,  after  this  general  survey  of  the  surface  of  New  England,  we  cast 
our  eyes  on  the  cities  and  great  towns,  with  what  wonder  should  we 
behold,  did  not  familiarity  render  the  phenomenon  almost  unnoticed, 
men,  combined  in  great  multitudes,  possessing  freedom  and  the  con 
sciousness  of  strength, — the  comparative  physical  power  of  the  ruler 
less  than  that  of  a  cobweb  across  a  lion's  path, — yet  orderly,  obedient, 
and  respectful  to  authority;  a  people,  but  no  populace;  every  class  in 
reality  existing  which  the  general  law  of  society  acknowledges,  except 
one, — and  this  exception  characterizing  the  whole  country.  The  soil 
of  New  England  is  trodden  by  no  slave.  In  our  streets,  in  our  assem 
blies,  in  the  halls  of  election  and  legislation,  men  of  every  rank  and 
condition  meet,  and  unite  or  divide  on  other  principles,  and  are  actu 
ated  by  other  motives  than  those  growing  out  of  such  distinctions. 
The  fears  and  jealousies  which  in  other  countries  separate  classes  of 
men,  and  make  them  hostile  to  each  other,  have  here  no  influence,  or 
a  very  limited  one.  Each  individual,  of  whatever  condition,  has  the 
consciousness  of  living  under  known  laws,  which  secure  equal  rights, 
and  guarantee  to  each  whatever  portion  of  the  goods  of  life,  be  it 
great  or  small,  chance  or  talent  or  industry  may  have  bestowed.  All 
perceive  that  the  honors  and  rewards  of  society  are  open  equally  to 
the  fair  competition  of  all, — that  the  distinctions  of  wealth  or  of  power, 
are  not  fixed  in  families, — that  whatever  of  this  nature  exists  to-day 
may  be  changed  to-morrow,  or,  in  a  coming  generation,  be  absolutely 
reversed.  Common  principles,  interests,  hopes,  and  affections  are  thG 
result  of  universal  education.  Such  are  the  consequences  of  the 
equality  of  rights,  and  of  the  provisions  for  the  general  diffusion  of 
knowledge,  and  the  distribution  of  intestate  estates,  established  by  the 
laws  framed  by  the  earliest  emigrants  to  New  England. 

If  from  our  cities  we  turn  to  survey  the  wide  expanse  of  the  inter 
ior,  how  do  the  effects  of  the  institutions  and  example  of  our  early 
ancestors  appear,  in  all  the  local  comfort  and  accommodation  which 
mark  the  general  condition  of  the  whole  country  ! — unobtrusive  indeed, 
but  substantial;  in  nothing  splendid,  but  in  everything  sufficient  and 
satisfactory.  Indications  of  active  talent  and  practical  energy  exist 
everywhere.  With  a  soil  comparatively  little  luxuriant,  and  in  great 


JOSIAII  QUINCY*  JR,  281 

proportion  either  rock,  or  hill,  or  sand,  the  skill  and  industry  of  man 
are  seen  triumphing  over  the  obstacles  of  nature;  making  the  rock  the 
guardian  of  the  field;  moulding  the  granite,  as  though  it  were  clay; 
leading  cultivation  to  the  hill  top,  and  spreading  over  the  arid  plain 
hitherto  unknown  and  unanticipated  harvests.  The  lofty  mansion  of  the 
prosperous  adjoins  the  lowly  dwelling  of  the  husbandman;  their  re 
spective  inmates  are  in  daily  interchange  of  civility,  sympathy,  and 
respect.  Enterprise  and  skill,  which  once  held  chief  affinity  with  the 
ocean  or  the  sea-board,  now  begin  to  delight  the  interior,  haunting  our 
rivers,  where  the  music  of  the  waterfall,  with  powers  more  attractive 
than  those  of  the  fabled  harp  of  Orpheus,  collects  around  it  intellectual 
man  and  material  nature.  Towns  and  cities,  civilized  and  happy 
communities;  rise,  like  exhalations,  on  rocks  and  in  forests,  till  the 
deep  and  far-sounding  voice  of  the  neighboring  torrent  is  itself  lost 
and  unheard,  amid  the  predominating  noise  of  successful  and  rejoicing 
labor. 

What  lessons  has  New  England,  in  every  period  of  her  history, 
given  to  the  world  \  What  lessons  do  her  condition  and  example  still 
give  !  How  unprecedented,  yet  how  practical !  How  simple,  yet  how 
powerful !  She  has  proved  that  all  the  variety  of  Christian  sects  may 
live  together  in  harmony,  under  a  government  which  allows  equal 
privileges  to  all,  exclusive  pre-eminence  to  none.  She  has  proved 
that  ignorance  among  the  multitude  is  not  necessary  to  order,  but  that 
the  surest  basis  of  perfect  order  is  the  information  of  the  people.  She 
has  proved  the  old  maxim,  that  "  no  government,  except  a  despotism 
with  a  standing  army,  can  subsist  where  the  people  have  arms,"  to  be 
false.  Ever  since  the  first  settlement  of  the  country,  arms  have  been 
required  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  whole  multitude  of  New  England; 
yet  the  use  of  them  in  a  private  quarrel,  if  it  have  ever  happened,  is 
so  rare,  that  a  late  writer  of  great  intelligence,  who  had  passed  his 
whole  life  in  New  England,  and  possessed  extensive  means  of  infor 
mation,  declares,  "I  know  not  a  single  instance  of  it."  She  has 
proved  that  a  people  of  a  character  essentially  military  ma}^  subsist 
without  duelling.  New  England  has  at  all  times  been  distinguished, 
both  on  the  land  and  on  the  ocean,  for  a  daring,  fearless,  and  enter 
prising  spirit; "yet  the  same  Avriter  asserts  that,  during  the  whole  period 
of  her  existence,  her  soil  has  been  disgraced  but  by  five  duels,  and  that 
only  two  of  these  were  fought  by  her  native  inhabitants  !  Perhaps 
this  assertion  is  not  minutely  correct.  There  can,  however,  be  no 
question  that  it  is  sufficiently  near  the  truth  to  justify  the  position  for 
which  it  is  here  adduced,  and  which  the  history  of  New  England,  as 
well  as  the  experience  of  her  inhabitants,  abundantly  confirms,— that, 
in  the  present  and  in  every  past  age,  the  spirit  of  our  institutions  has, 
to  every  important  practical  purpose,  annihilated  the  spirit  of  duelling. 

Such  are  the  true  glories  of  the  institutions  of  our  fathers  !  Such 
the  natural  fruits  of  that  patience  in  toil,  that  frugality  of  disposition, 


2 !:  2  A  M ERIC  A  N  PA  7  'AY  0  TISM. 

that  temperance  of  habit,  that  general  diffusion  of  knowledge,  and  that 
sense  of  religious  responsibility,  inculcated  by  the  precepts,  and  exhi 
bited  in  the  example,  of  every  generation  of  our  ancestors  ! 

And  now,  standing  at  this  hour  on  the  dividing  line  which  separates 
the  ages  that  are  passed  from  those  which  are  to  come,  how  solemn  is 
the  thought,  that  not  one  of  this  vast  assembly — not  one  of  that  great 
multitude  who  now  throng  our  streets,  rejoice  in  our  fields,  and  make 
oar  hills  echo  with  their  gratulations — shall  live  to  witness  the  next 
return  of  the  era  we  this  day  celebrate  !  The  dark  veil  of  futurity 
conceals  from  human  sight  the  fate  of  cities  and  nations,  as  well  as  of 
individuals.  Man  passes  away;  generations  are  but  shadows; — there 
i>  nothing  stable  but  truth;  principles  only  are  immortal. 

What,  then,  in  conclusion  of  this  great  topic,  are  the  elements  of 
the  liberty,  prosperity,  and  safety  which  the  inhabitants  of  New  Eng 
land  at  this  day  enjoy  ?  In  what  language,  and  concerning  what  com 
prehensive  truths,  does  the  wisdom  of  former  times  address  the 
inexperience  of  the  future? 

These  elements  are  simple,  obvious,  and  familiar. 

Every  civil  and  religious  blessing  of  New  England — all  that  here 
gives  happiness  to  human  life,  or  security  to  human  virtue — is  alone 
to  be  perpetuated  in  the  forms  and  under  the  auspices  of  a  free  com 
monwealth. 

The  commonwealth  itself  has  no  other  strength  or  hope  than  the 
intelligence  and  virtue  of  the  individuals  that  compose  it. 

For  the  intelligence  and  virtue  of  individuals  there  is  no  other 
human  assurance  than  laws  providing  for  the  education  of  the  whole 
people. 

These  laws  themselves  have  no  strength,  or  efficient  sanction,  ex 
cept  in  the  moral  and  accountable  nature  of  man  disclosed  in  the 
records  of  the  Christian  faith;  the  right  to  read,  to  construe,  and  to  judge 
concerning  which  belongs  to  no  class  or  caste  of  men,  but  exclusively 
to  the  individual,  who  must  stand  or  fall  by  his  own  acts  and  his  own 
faith,  and  not  by  those  of  another. 

The  great  comprehensive  truths,  written  in  letters  of  living  light  on 
every  page  of  our  history, — the  language  addressed  by  every  past  age 
of  New  England  to  all  future  ages,  is  this:  Human  happiness  has  no 
perfect  security  but  freedom;  freedom  none  but  virtue;  virtue,  none 
but  knowledge;  and  neither  freedom,  nor  virtue,  nor  knowledge  has 
any  vigor,  or  immortal  hope,  except  in  the  principles  of  the  Christian 
faith,  and  in  the  sanctions  of  the  Christian  religion. 

Men  of  Massachusetts  !  citizens  of  Boston  !  descendants  of  the  early 
emigrants!  consider  your  blessings;  consider  your  duties.  You  have  an 
inheritance  acquired  by  the  labors  and  sufferings  of  six  successive  gen 
erations  of  ancestors.  They  founded  the  fabric  of  your  prosperity  in  a 
severe  and  masculine  morality,  having  intelligence  for  its  cement,  and 
re  i'r',on  for  its  groundwork.  Continue  to  build  on  the  same  foundation, 


AXDRE IV  JA  CKSON-.  283 

and  by  the  same  principles;  let  the  extending  temple  of  your  country's 
freedom  rise,  in  the  spirit  of  ancient  times,  in  proportions  of  intellec 
tual  and  moral  architecture, — just,  simple,  and  sublime.  As  from  the 
first  to  this  day,  let  New  England  continue  to  be  an  example  to  the 
world  of  the  blessings  of  a  free  government,  and  of  the  means  and 
capacity  of  men  to  maintain  it.  And  in  all  times  to  come,  as  in  all 
times  past,  may  Boston  be  among  the  foremost  and  boldest  to  exem 
plify  and  uphold  whatever  constitutes  the  prosperity,  the  happiness, 
and'  the  glory  of  New  England. 


PROCLAMATION  AGAINST  NULLIFICATION. 
ANDREW  JACKSON. 

Washington,  December  19,  1832. 

Whereas  a  convention  assembled  in  the  State  of  South  Carolina 
have  passed  an  ordinance,  by  which  they  declare  "  That  the  several 
acts  and  parts  of  acts  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  purport 
ing  to  be  laws  for  the  imposing  of  duties  and  imposts  on  the  importa 
tion  of  foreign  commodities,  and  now  having  actual  operation  and  ef 
fect  within  the  United  States,  and  more  especially,"  two  acts  for  the 
same  purposes  passed  on  the  2gth  of  May,  1828,  and  on  the  I4th  of 
July,  1832,  "are  unauthorized  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  violate  the  true  meaning  and  intent  thereof,  and  are  null 
and  void,  and  no  law,"  nor  binding  on  the  citizens  of  that  State  or  its 
officers;  and  by  said  ordinance,  it  is  further  declared  to  be  unlawful 
for  any  of  thfc  constituted  authorities  of  the  State  or  of  the  United 
States  to  enforce  the  payment  of  the  duties  imposed  by  the  said  acts 
within  the  same  State,  and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  legislature  to 
pass  such  laws  as  may  be  necessary  to  give  full  effect  to  the  said  ordi 
nance  ; 

And  whereas,  by  the  said  ordinance,  it  is  further  ordained,  that  in 
no  case  of  law  or  equity  decided  in  the  courts  of  said  State,  wherein 
shall  be  drawn  in  question  the  validity  of  the  said  ordinance,  or  of  the 
acts  of  the  legislature  that  may  be  passed  to  give  it  effect,  or  of  the 
said  laws  of  the  United  States,  no  appeal  shall  be  allowed  to  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States,  nor  shall  any  copy  of  the  record  be 
permitted  or  allowed  for  that  purpose,  and  that  any  person  attempt 
ing  to  take  such  appeal  shall  be  punished  as  for  a  contempt  of 
court  ; 

And,  finally,  the  said  ordinance  declares  that  the  people  of  South 
Carolina  will  maintain  the  said  ordinance  at  every  hazard;  and  that 
they  will  consider  the  passage  of  any  act  by  Congress  abolishing  or 
closing  the  ports  of  the  said  State,  or  otherwise  obstructing  the  free 


284  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

ingress  or  egress  of  vessels  to  and  from  the  said  ports,  or  any  other 
act  of  the  federal  government  to  coerce  the  State,  shut  up  her  ports, 
destroy  or  harass  her  commerce,  or  to  enforce  the  said  acts  otherwise 
than  through  the  civil  tribunals  of  the  country,  as  inconsistent  with 
the  longer  continuance  of  South  Carolina  in  the  Union;  and  that  the 
people  of  the  said  State  will  thenceforth  hold  themselves  absolved 
from  all  further  obligation  to  maintain  or  preserve  their  political  con 
nexion  with  the  people  of  the  other  States,  and  will  forthwith  proceed 
to  organize  a  separate  government,  and  do  all  other  acts  and  things 
which  sovereign  and  independent  States  may  of  right  do. 

And  whereas  the  said  ordinance  prescribes  to  the  people  of  South 
Carolina  a  course  of  conduct  in  direct  violation  of  their  duty  as  citi 
zens  of  the  United  States,,  contrary  to  the  laws  of  their  country,  sub 
versive  of  its  Constitution,  and  having  for  its  object  the  destruction 
of  the  Union;  that  Union  which,  coeval  with  our  political  existence, 
led  our  fathers,  without  any  other  ties  to  unite  them  than  those  of  pat 
riotism  and  a  common  cause,  through  a  sanguinary  struggle  to  a  glo 
rious  independence;  that  sacred  Union,  hitherto  inviolate,  which, 
perfected  by  our  happy  Constitution,  has  brought  us,  by  the  favor  of 
heaven,  to  a  state  of  prosperity  at  home,  and  high  consideration 
abroad,  rarely,  if  ever  equalled  in  the  history  of  nations.  To  pre 
serve  this  bond  of  our  political  existence  from  destruction,  to  main 
tain  inviolate  this  state  of  national  honor  and  prosperity,  and  to  jus 
tify  the  confidence  my  fellow-citizens  have  reposed  in  me,  I,  Andrew 
Jackson,  President  of  the  United  States,  have  thought  proper  to  issue 
this  my  proclamation,  stating  my  views  of  the  Constitution  and  laws 
applicable  to  the  measures  adopted  by  the  convention  of  South  Caro 
lina,  and  to  the  reasons  they  have  put  forth  to  sustain  them,  declaring 
the  course  which  duty  will  require  me  to  pursue,  and  appealing  to  the 
understanding  and  patriotism  of  the  people,  warn  them  of  the  conse 
quences  that  must  inevitably  result  from  an  observance  of  the  dictates 
of  the  convention. 

Strict  duty  would  require  of  me  nothing  more  than  the  exercise  of 
those  powers  with  which  I  am  now,  or  may  hereafter  be  invested,  for 
preserving  the  peace  of  the  Union,  and  for  the  execution  of  the  laws. 
But  the  imposing  aspect  which  opposition  has  assumed  in  this  case, 
by  clothing  itself  with  State  authority,  and  the  deep  interest  which 
the  people  of  the  United  States  must  all  feel  in  preventing  a  resort  to 
stronger  measures,  while  there  is  a  hope  that  anything  will  be  yielded 
to  reasoning  and  remonstrance,  perhaps  demand,  and  will  certainly 
justify,  a  full  exposition  to  South  Carolina  and  the  nation  of  the  views 
I  entertain  of  this  important  question,  as  well  as  a  distinct  enun 
ciation  of  the  course  which  my  sense  of  duty  will  require  me  to  pur 
sue. 

The  ordinance  is  founded,  not  on  the  indefeasible  right  of  resisting 
acts  which  are  plainly  unconstitutional,  and  too  oppressive  to  be  en- 


ANDRE  IV  JA CA'SO.V.  285 

dured,  but  on  the  strange  position  that  any  one  State  may  not  only 
declare  an  act  of  Congress  void,  but  prohibit  its  execution;  that  they 
may  do  this  consistently  with  the  Constitution  ;-that  the  true  construc 
tion  of  that  instrument  permits  a  State  to  retain  its  place  in  the  Union, 
and  yet  be  bound  by  no  other  of  its  laws  than  those  it  may  choose  to 
consider  as  constitutional.  It  is  true,  they  add,  that  to  justify  this  ab 
rogation  of  a  law,  it  must  be  palpably  contrary  to  the  Constitution  ; 
but  it  is  evident  that,  to  give  the  right  of  resisting  laws  of  that  de 
scription,  coupled  with  the  uncontrolled  right  to  decide  what  laws  de 
serve  that  character,  is  to  give  the  power  of  resisting  all  laws.  For, 
as  by  the  theory,  there  is  no  appeal,  the  reasons  alleged  by  the  State, 
good  or  bad,  must  prevail.  If  it  should  be  said  that  public  opinion  is 
a  sufficient  check  against  the  abuse  of  this  power,  it  may  be  asked 
why  it  is  not  deemed  a  sufficient  guard  against  the  passage  of  an  un 
constitutional  act  by  Congress  ?  There  is,  however,  a  restraint  in 
this  last  case,  which  makes  the  assumed  power  of  a  State  more  inde 
fensible,  and  which  does  not  exist  in  the  other.  There  are  two  ap 
peals  from  an  unconstitutional  act  passed  by  Congress — one  to  the 
judiciary,  the  other  to  the  people  and  the  States.  There  is  no  appeal 
from  the  State  decision  in  theory,  and  the  practical  illustration  shows 
that  the  courts  are  closed  against  an  application  to  review  it,  both 
judges  and  jurors  being  sworn  to  decide  in  its  favor.  But  reasoning 
on  this  subject  is  superfluous,  when  our  social  compact,  in  express 
terms,  declares  that  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  its  Constitution, 
and  treaties  made  under  it,  are  the  supreme  law  of  the  land;  and,  for 
greater  caution,  adds  "  that  the  judges  in  every  State  shall  be  bound 
thereby,  anything  in  the  Constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  to  the  con 
trary  notwithstanding."  And  it  may  be  asserted,  without  fear  of  refu 
tation,  that  no  federative  government  could  exist  without  a  similar 
provision.  Look  for  a  moment  to  the  consequence.  If  South  Caro 
lina  considers  the  revenue  laws  unconstitutional,  and  has  a  right  to 
prevent  their  execution  in  the  port  of  Charleston,  there  would  be  a 
clear  constitutional  objection  to  their  collection  in  every  other  port, 
and  no  revenue  could  be  collected  anywhere,  for  all  imposts  must  be 
equal.  It  is  no  answer  to  repeat  that  an  unconstitutional  law  is  no 
law,  so  long  as  the  question  of  its  legality  is  to  be  decided  by  the  State 
itself ;  for  every  law  operating  injuriously  upon  any  local  interest  wilJ 
be  perhaps  thought,  and  certainly  represented,  as  unconstitutional, 
and,  as  has  been  shown,  there  is  no  appeal. 

If  this  doctrine  had  been  established  at  an  earlier  day  the  Union 
would  have  been  dissolved  in  its  infancy.  The  excise  law  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  the  embargo  and  non-intercourse  law  in  the  eastern  States,  the 
carriage  tax  in  Virginia,  were  all  deemed  unconstitutional,  and  were 
more  unequal  in  their  operation  than  any  of  the  laws  now  complained 
of;  but  fortunately  none  of  those  states  discovered  that  they  had  the 
right  now  claimed  by  South  Carolina.  The  war  into  which  we  were 


286  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

forced  to  support  the  dignity  of  the  nation  and  the  rights  of  our  citi 
zens  might  have  ended  in  defeat  and  disgrace  instead  of  victory  and 
honor,  if  the  states  who  supposed  it  a  ruinous  and  unconstitutional 
measure  had  thought  they  possessed  the  right  of  nullifying  the  act  by 
which  it  was  declared,  and  denying  supplies  for  its  prosecution. 
Hardly  and  unequally  as  those  measures  bore  upon  several  members 
of  the  Union,  to  the  legislatures  of  none  did  this  efficient  and  peace 
able  remedy,  as  it  is  called,  suggest  itself.  The  discovery  of  this  im 
portant  feature  in  our  Constitution  was  reserved  to  the  present  day. 
To  the  statesmen  of  South  Carolina  belongs  the  invention,  and  upon 
the  citizens  of  that  State  will  unfortunately  fall  the  evils  of  reducing  it 
to  practice. 

If  the  doctrine  of  a  state  veto  upon  the  laws  of  the  Union  carries 
with  it  internal  evidence  of  its  impracticable  absurdity,  our  constitu 
tional  history  will  also  afford  abundant  proof  that  it  would  have  been 
repudiated  with  indignation  had  it  been  proposed  to  form  a  feature  in 
our  government. 

In  our  colonial  state,  although  depending  on  another  power,  we 
very  early  considered  ourselves  as  connected  by  common  interest  with 
each  other.  Leagues  were  formed  for  common  defence,  and  before 
the  declaration  of  independence  we  were  known  in  our  aggregate 
character  as  the  United  Colonies  of  America.  That  decisive  and  im 
portant  step  was  taken  jointly.  We  declared  ourselves  a  nation  by  a 
^bint,  not  by  several  acts,  and  when  the  terms  of  our  confederation 
\vere  reduced  to  form,  it  was  in  that  of  a  solemn  league  of  several 
states,  by  which  they  agreed  that  they  would  collectively  form  one 
nation  for  the  purpose  of  conducting  some  certain  domestic  concerns 
and  all  foreign  relations.  In  the  instrument  forming  that  Union  is 
found  an  article  which  declares  that  "every  state  shall  abide  by  the 
determinations  of  Congress  on  all  questions  which,  by  that  confedera 
tion,  should  be  submitted  to  them." 

Under  the  confederation,  then,  no  state  could  legally  annul  a  de 
cision  of  the  Congress  or  refuse  to  submit  to  its  execution;  but  no  pro 
vision  was  made  to  enforce  these  decisions.  Congress  made  requisi 
tions,  but  they  were  not  complied  with.  The  government  could  not 
operate  on  individuals.  They  had  no  judiciary,  no  means  of  collect 
ing  revenue. 

But  the  defects  of  the  confederation  need  not  be  detailed.  Under 
its  operation  we  could  scarcely  be  called  a  nation.  We  had  neither 
prosperity  at  home  nor  consideration  abroad.  This  state  of  things 
could  not  be  endured,  and  our  present  happy  Constitution  was  formed, 
but  formed  in  vain,  if  this  fatal  doctrine  prevails.  It  was  formed  for 
important  objects  that  are  announced  in  the  preamble  made  in  the 
name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  whose 
delegates  framed  and  whose  conventions  approved  it.  The  most 
important  among  these  objects,  that  which  is  placed  first  in  rank, 


A  NDRE IV  JA  CKSON.  2  S  7 


is  it  possible  that  even  if  there  were  no  express  provision  giving  su 
premacy  to  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States  over  those 
of  the  states,  can  it  be  conceived  that  an  instrument  made  for  the  pur 
pose  of  "forming  a  more  perfect  Union"  than  that  of  the  confedera 
tion,  could  be  so  constructed  by  the  assembled  wisdom  of  our  country 
as  to  substitute  for  that  confederation  a  form  of  government  depend 
ent  for  its  existence  on  the  local  interest,  the  party  spirit  of  a  state,  or 
of  a  prevailing  faction  in  a  state  ?  Every  man  of  plain,  unsophisti 
cated  understanding,  who  hears  the  question,  will  give  such  an  answer 
as  will  preserve  the  Union.  Metaphysical  subtlety,  in  pursuit  of  an 
impracticable  theory,  could  alone  have  devised  one  that  is  calculated 
to  destroy  it. 

I  consider,  then,  the  power  to  annul  a  law  of  the  United  States,  as 
sumed  by  one  state,  incompatible  with  the  existence  of  the  Union, 
contradicted  expressly  by  the  letter  of  the  Constitution,  unauthorized 
by  its  spirit,  inconsistent  with  every  principle  on  which  it  was  founded, 
and  destructive  of  the  great  object  for  which  it  was  formed. 

After  this  general  view  of  the  leading  principle,  we  must  examine 
the  particular  application  of  it  which  is  made  in  the  ordinance. 

The  preamble  rests  its  justification  on  these  grounds:  It  assumes 
as  a  fact  that  the  obnoxious  laws,  although  they  purport  to  be  laws 
for  raising  revenue,  were  in  reality  intended  for  the  protection  of 
manufactures,  which  purpose  it  asserts  to  be  unconstitutional;  that 
the  operation  of  these  laws  is  unequal;  that  the  amount  raised  by  them 
is  greater  than  is  required  by  the  wants  of  the  government;  and, 
finally,  that  the  proceeds  are  to  be  applied  to  objects  unauthorized  by 
the  Constitution.  These  are  the  only  causes  alleged  to  justify  an  open 
opposition  to  the  laws  of  the  country,  and  a  threat  of  seceding  from 
the  Union  if  any  attempt  should  be  made  to  enforce  them.  The  first 
virtually  acknowledges  that  the  law  in  question  was  passed  under  a 
power  expressly  given  by  the  Constitution  to  lay  and  collect  imposts; 
but  its  constitutionality  is  drawn  in  question  from  the  motives  of  those 
who  passed  it.  However  apparent  this  purpose  may  be  in  the  present 
case,  nothing  can  be  more  dangerous  than  to  admit  the  position  that 
an  unconstitutional  purpose,  entertained  by  the  members  who  assent 
to  a  law  enacted  under  a  constitutional  power,  shall  make  that  law 
void;  for  how  is  that  purpose  to  be  ascertained  ?  Who  is  to  make  the 
scrutiny  ?  How  often  may  bad  purposes  be  falsely  imputed  !  in  how 
many  cases  are  they  concealed  by  false  professions  !  in  how  many  is 
no  declaration  of  motive  made!  Admit  this  doctrine,  and  you  give  to 
the  states  an  uncontrolled  right  to  decide,  and  every  law  may  be  an 
nulled  under  this  pretext.  If,  therefore,  the  absurd  and  dangerous 
doctrine  should  be  admitted  that  a  state  may  annul  an  unconstitutional 
law,  or  one  that  it  deems  such,  it  will  not  apply  to  the  present  case. 

The  next  objection  is,  that  the  laws  in  question  operate  unequally. 


288  AM  ERICA  X  PATRIOTISM. 

This  objection  may  be  made  with  truth  to  every  law  that  has  been  or 
can  be  passed.  The  wisdom  of  man  never  yet  contrived  a  system  of 
taxation  that  would  operate  with  perfect  equality.  If  the  unequal 
operation  of  a  law  makes  it  unconstitutional,  and  if  all  laws  of  that 
description  may  be  abrogated  by  any  state  for  that  cause,  then  indeed 
is  the  federal  Constitution  unworthy  of  the  slightest  effort  for  its  pres 
ervation.  We  have  hitherto  relied  on  it  as  the  perpetual  bond  of  our 
Union.  We  have  received  it  as  the  work  of  the  assembled  wisdom  of 
the  nation.  We  have  trusted  to  it  as  to  the  sheet-anchor  of  our  safety 
in  the  stormy  times  of  conflict  with  a  foreign  or  domestic  foe.  We 
have  looked  to  it  with  sacred  awe  as  the  palladium  of  our  liberties, 
and  with  all  the  solemnities  of  religion  have  pledged  to  each  other  our 
lives  and  fortunes  here  and  our  hopes  of  happiness  hereafter,  in  its 
defence  and  support.  Were  we  mistaken,  my  countrymen,  in  attach 
ing  this  importance  to  the  Constitution  of  our  country  ?  Was  our  de 
votion  paid  to  the  wretched,  inefficient,  clumsy  contrivance  which  this 
new  doctrine  would  make  it  ?  Did  we  pledge  ourselves  to  the  support 
of  an  airy  nothing — a  bubble  that  must  be  blown  away  by  the  first 
breath  of  disaffection  ?  Was  this  self-destroying,  visionary  theory  the 
work  of  the  profound  statesmen,  the  exalted  patriots,  to  whom  the 
task  of  constitutional  reform  was  intrusted  ?  Did  the  name  of  Wash 
ington  sanction — did  the  states  deliberately  ratify  such  an  anomaly  in 
the  history  of  fundamental  legislation.  No.  We  were  not  mistaken. 
The  letter  of  this  great  instrument  is  free  from  this  radical  fault;  its 
language  directly  contradicts  the  imputation;  its  spirit,  its  evident  in 
tent,  contradicts  it.  No,  we  did  not  err.  Our  Constitution  does  not 
contain  the  absurdity  of  giving  power  to  make  laws,  and  another 
power  to  resist  them.  The  sages,  whose  memory  will  always  be  rev 
erenced,  have  given  us  a  practical,  and,  as  they  hoped,  a  permanent 
constitutional  compact.  The  Father  of  his  Country  did  not  affix  his 
revered  name  to  so  palpable  an  absurdity.  Nor  did  the  states,  when 
they  severally  ratified  it,  do  so  under  the  impression  that  a  veto  on 
the  laws  of  the  United  States  was  reserved  to  them,  or  that  they  could 
exercise  it  by  implication.  Search  the  debates  in  all  their  conven 
tions;  examine  the  speeches  of  the  most  zealous  opposers  of  federal 
authority:  look  at  the  amendments  that  were  proposed.  They  are  all 
silent;  not  a  syllable  uttered,  not  a  vote  given,  not  a  motion  made  to' 
correct  the  explicit  supremacy  given  to  the  laws  of  the  Union  over 
those  of  the  states,  or  to  show  that  implication,  as  is  now  contended,' 
could  defeat  it.  No,  we  have  not  erred.  The  Constitution  is  still  the 
object  of  our  reverence,  the  bond  of  our  Union,  our  defence  in  dan 
ger,  the  source  of  our  prosperity  in  peace:  it  shall  descend  as  we  have 
received  it,  uncorrupted  by  sophistical  construction,  to  our  posterity; 
and  the  sacrifices  of  local  interest,  of  state  prejudices,  of  personal  ani 
mosities,  that  were  made  to  bring  it  into  existence,  will  again  be  patri 
otically  offered  for  its  support. 


ANDRE  I V  JA  CKSON.  289 

The  two  remaining  objections  made  by  the  ordinance  to  these  laws 
are,  that  the  sums  intended  to  be  raised  by  them  are  greater  than  are 
required,  and  that  the  proceeds  will  be  unconstitutionally  employed. 

The  Constitution  has  given  expressly  to  Congress  the  right  of  rais 
ing  revenue,  and  of  determining  the  sum  the  public  exigencies  will 
require.  The  states  have  no  control  over  the  exercise  of  this  right 
other  than  that  which  results  from  the  power  of  changing  the  repre 
sentatives  who  abuse  it,  and  thus  procure  redress.  Congress  may, 
undoubtedly,  abuse  this  discretionary  power,  but  the  same  may  be 
said  of  others  with  which  they  are  vested.  Yet  the  discretion  must  exist 
somewhere.  The  Constitution  has  given  it  to  the  representatives  of 
all  the  people,  checked  by  the  representatives  of  the  states  and  by  the 
Executive  power.  The  South  Carolina  construction  gives  it  to  the 
legislature  or  the  convention  of  a  single  state,  where  neither  the  peo 
ple  of  the  different  states,  nor  the  states  in  their  separate  capacity, 
nor  the  Chief  Magistrate  elected  by  the  people,  have  any  representa 
tion.  Which  is  the  most  discreet  disposition  of  the  power?  I  do  not 
ask  you,  fellow-citizens,  which  is  the  constitutional  disposition;  that 
instrument  speaks  a  language  not  to  be  misunderstood.  But  if  you 
were  assembled  in  general  convention,  which  would  you  think  the 
safest  depository  of  this  discretionary  power  in  the  last  resort?  Would 
you  add  a  clause  giving  it  to  each  of  the  states,  or  would  you  sanction 
the  wise  provisions  already  made  by  your  Constitution  ?  If  this 
should  be  the  result  of  your  deliberations  when  providing  for  the  future, 
are  you,  can  you  be  ready  to  risk  all  that  we  hold  dear  to  establish, 
for  a  temporary  and  a  local  purpose,  that  which  you  must  acknowledge 
to  be  destructive,  and  even  absurd,  as  a  general  provision  ?  Carry 
out  the  consequences  of  this  right  vested  in  the  different  states,  and 
you  must  perceive  that  the  crisis  your  conduct  presents  at  this  day 
would  recur  whenever  any  law  of  the  United  States  displeased  any  of 
the  states,  and  that  we  should  soon  cease  to  be  a  nation. 

The  ordinance,  with  the  same  knowledge  of  the  future  that  character 
izes  a  former  objection,  tells  you  that  the  proceeds  of  the  tax  will  be 
unconstitutionally  applied.  If  this  could  be  ascertained  with  certainty, 
the  objection  would,  with  more  propriety,  be  reserved  for  the  law  so 
applying  the  proceeds,  but  surely  cannot  be  urged  against  the  laws 
levying  the  duty. 

These  arc  the  allegations  contained  in  the  ordinance.  Examine 
them  seriously,  my  fellow-citizens — judge  for  yourselves.  I  appeal  to 
you  to  determine  whether  they  are  so  clear,  so  convincing,  as  to  leave 
no  doubt  of  their  correctness;  and  even  if  you  should  come  to  this 
conclusion,  how  far  they  justify  the  reckless,  destructive  course  which 
you  are  directed  to  pursue.  Review  these  objections,  and  the  conclu 
sions  drawn  from  them,  once  more.  What  are  they?  Every  law, 
then,  for  raising  revenue,  according  to  the  South  Carolina  ordinance, 
may  be  rightfully  annulled,  unless  it  be  so  framed  as  no  law  ever  will 


290  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

or  can  be  framed.  Congress  has  a  right  to  pass  laws  for  raising 
revenue,  and  each  state  has  a  right  to  oppose  their  execution — two 
rights  directly  opposed  to  each  other;  and  yet  is  this  absurdity  sup 
posed  to  be  contained  in  an  instrument  drawn  for  the  express  purpose 
of  avoiding  collisions  between  the  states  and  the  general  government 
by  an  assembly  of  the  most  enlightened  statesmen  and  purest  patriots 
ever  embodied  for  a  similar  purpose. 

In  vain  have  these  sages  declared  that  Congress  shall  have  power 
to  lay  and  collect  taxes,  duties,  imposts  and  excises;  in  vain  have 
they  provided  that  they  shall  have  power  to  pass  laws  which  shall  be 
necessary  and  proper  to  carry  those  powers  into  execution;  that  those 
laws  and  that  Constitution  shall  be  the  "  supreme  law  of  the  land, 
and  that  the  judges  in  every  state  shall  be  bound  thereby,  anything 
in  the  constitution  oniaws  of  any  state  to  the  contrary  notwithstand 
ing."  In  vain  have  the  people  of  the  several  states  solemnly  sanc 
tioned  these  provisions,  made  them  their  paramount  law,  and  indi 
vidually  sworn  to  support  them  whenever  they  were  called  on  to 
execute  any  office.  Vain  provisions!  ineffectual  restrictions!  vile 
profanation  of  oaths!  miserable  mockery  of  legislation!  if  a  bare  ma 
jority  of  the  voters  in  any  one  state  may,  on  a  real  or  supposed 
knowledge  of  the  intent  with  which  a  law  has  been  passed,  declare 
themselves  free  from  its  operation — say  here  it  gives  too  little,  there 
too  much,  and  operates  unequally;  here  it  suffers  articles  to  be  free 
that  ought  to  be  taxed — there  it  taxes  those  that  ought  to  be  free;  in 
this  case  the  proceeds  are  intended  to  be  applied  to  purposes  which 
we  do  not  approve — in  that  the  amount  raised  is  more  than  is  wanted. 

Congress,  it  is  true,  is  invested  by  the  Constitution  with  the  right 
of  deciding  these  questions  according  to  its  sound  discretion.  Con 
gress  is  composed  of  the  representatives  of  all  the  states,  and  of  all 
the  people  of  all  the  states;  but  we,  part  of  the  people  of  one  state, 
to  whom  the  Constitution  has  given  no  power  on  the  subject,  from 
whom  it  has  expressly  taken  it  away — we,  who  have  solemnly  agreed 
that  this  Constitution  shall  be  our  law — we,  most  of  whom  have  sworn 
to  support  it — we  now  abrogate  this  law,  and  swear,  and  force  others  to 
swear,  that  it  shall  not  be  obeyed.  And  we  do  this  not  because  Con 
gress  have  no  right  to  pass  such  laws — this  we  do  not  allege — but  be 
cause  they  have  passed  them  with  improper  views.  They  are  uncon 
stitutional  from  the  motives  of  those  who  passed  them,  which  we  can 
never  with  certainty  know;  from  their  unequal  operation,  although  it 
is  impossible,  from  the  nature  of  things,  that  they  should  be  equal; 
and  from  the  disposition  which  we  presume  may  be  made  of  their  pro 
ceeds,  although  that  disposition  has  not  been  declared.  This  is  the 
plain  meaning  of  the  ordinance  in  relation  to  laws  which  it  abrogates 
for  alleged  unconstitutionality.  But  it  does  not  stop  there.  It  re 
peals,  in  express  terms,  an  important  part  of  the  Constitution  itself, 
and  of  laws  passed  to  give  it  effect,  which  have  never  been  alleged  to 


A NDRE IV  /.  /  CKSON.  29 1 

be  unconstitutional.  The  Constitution  declares  that  the  judical  powers 
of  the  United  States  extend  to  cases  arising  under  the  laws  of  the 
United  States,  and  that  such  laws,  the  Constitution  and  treaties,  shall 
be  paramount  to  the  state  constitutions  and  laws.  The  judiciary  act 
prescribes  the  mode  by  which  the  case  may  be  brought  before  a  court 
of  the  United  states,  by  appeal,  when  a  state  tribunal  shall  decide 
against  this  provision  of  the  Constitution.  The  ordinance  declares 
there  shall  be  no  appeal;  makes  the  state  law  paramount  to  the  Con 
stitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States;  forces  judges  and  jurors  to 
swear  that  they  will  disregard  their  provisions;  and  even  makes  it 
penal  in  a  suitor  to  attempt  relief  by  appeal.  It  further  declares  that 
it  shall  not  be  lawful  for  the  authorities  of  the  United  States,  or  of 
that  state,  to  enforce  the  payment  of  duties  imposed  by  the  revenue 
laws  within  its  limits. 

Here  is  a  law  of  the  United  States,  not  even  pretended  to  be  uncon 
stitutional,  repealed  by  the  authority  of  a  small  majority  of  the  voters 
of  a  single  state.  Here  is  a  provision  of  the  Constitution  which  is 
solemnly  abrogated  by  the  same  authority. 

On  such  expositions  and  reasonings  the  ordinance  grounds  not  only 
an  assertion  of  the  right  to  annul  the  laws  of  which  it  complains,  but 
to  enforce  it  by  a  threat  of  seceding  from  the  Union  if  any  attempt  is 
made  to  execute  them. 

This  right  to  secede  is  deduced  from  the  nature  of  the  Constitution, 
which,  they  say,  is  a  compact  between  sovereign  states,  who  have  pre 
served  their  whole  sovereignty,  and  therefore  are  subject  to  no  supe 
rior;  that,  because  they  made  the  compact  they  can  break  it  when,  in 
their  opinion,  it  has  been  departed  from  by  the  other  states.  Falla 
cious  as  this  course  of  reasoning  is,  it  enlists  state  pride,  and  finds  ad 
vocates  in  the  honest  prejudices  of  those  who  have  not  studied  the 
nature  of  our  government  sufficiently  to  see  the  radical  error  on  which 
it  rests. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  formed  the  Constitution,  acting 
through  the  state  legislatures  in  making  the  compact,  to  meet  and  dis 
cuss  its  provisions,  and  acting  in  separate  conventions  when  they  rati 
fied  these  provisions;  but  the  terms  used  in  its  construction  show  it  to 
be  a  government  in  which  the  people  of  the  states  collectively  are  rep 
resented.  We  are  one  people  in  the  choice  of  the  President  and  Vice- 
President.  Here  the  states  have  no  other  agency  than  to  direct  the 
mode  in  which  the  votes  shall  be  given.  The  candidates  having  the 
majority  of  all  the  votes  are  chosen.  The  electors  of  a  majority  of 
states  may  have  given  their  votes  for  one  candidate,  and  yet  another 
may  be  chosen.  The  people,  then,  and  not  the  states,  are  represented 
in  the  executive  branch. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  there  is  this  difference,  that  the 
people  of  one  state  do  not,  as  in  the  case  of  President  and  Vice-Pres 
ident,  all  vote  for  the  same  officers.  The  people  of  all  the  states  do 


292  A  M ERIC  AN  P.  I  TRIO  TISM. 

not  vote  for  all  the  members,  each  state  electing  only  its  own  repre 
sentatives.  But  this  creates  no  material  distinction.  When  chosen, 
they  are  all  representatives  of  the  United  States,  not  representatives 
of  the  particular  state  from  which  they  come.  They  are  paid  by  the 
United  States,  not  by  the  state,  nor  are  they  accountable  to  it  for  any 
act  done  in  the  performance  of  their  legislative  functions;  and  how 
ever  they  may  in  practice,  as  it  is  their  duty  to  do,  consult  and  prefer 
the  interests  of  their  particular  constituents  when  they  come  in  con 
flict  with  any  other  partial  or  local  interest,  yet  it  is  their  first  and 
highest  duty,  as  representatives  of  the  United  States,  to  promote  the 
general  good. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  then,  forms  a  government, 
not  a  league,  and  whether  it  be  formed  by  compact  between  the  states 
or  in  any  other  manner,  its  character  is  the  same.  It  is  a  government 
in  which  all  the  people  are  represented,  which  operates  directly  on  the 
people  individually,  not  upon  the  states — they  retained  all  the  power 
they  did  not  grant.  But  each  state  having  expressly  parted  with  so 
many  powers  as  to  constitute,  jointly  with  the  other  states,  a  single 
nation,  cannot  from  that  period  possess  any  right  to  secede,  because 
such  secession  does  not  break  a  league,  but  destroys  the  unity  of  a 
nation,  and  any  injury  to  that  unity  is  not  only  a  breach  which  would 
result  from  the  contravention  of  a  compact,  but  it  is  an  offence  against 
the  whole  Union.  To  say  that  any  state  may  at  pleasure  secede  from 
the  Union  is  to  say  that  the  United  States  are  not  a  nation,  because  it 
would  be  a  solecism  to  contend  that  any  part  of  a  nation  might  dis 
solve  its  connection  with  the  other  parts,  to  their  injury  or  ruin,  with 
out  committing  any  offence.  Secession,  like  any  other  revolutionary 
act,  may  be  morally  justified  by  the  extremity  of  oppression;  but  to 
call  it  a  constitutional  right  is  confounding  the  meaning  of  terms,  and 
can  only  be  done  through  gross  error,  or  to  deceive  those  who  are 
willing  to  assert  a  right,  but  would  pause  before  they  made  a  revolu 
tion,  or  incur  the  penalties  consequent  on  a  failure. 

Because  the  Union  was  formed  by  compact,  it  is  said  the  parties  to 
that  compact  may,  when  they  feel  themselves  aggrieved,  depart  from 
it;  but  it  is  precisely  because  it  is  a  compact  that  they  cannot.  A  com 
pact  is  an  agreement  or  binding  obligation.  It  may  by  its  terms  have 
a  sanction  or  penalty  for  its  breach,  or  it  may  not.  If  it  contains  no 
sanction,  it  may  be  broken  with  no  other  consequence  than  moral 
guilt;  if  it  have  a  sanction,  then  the  breach  insures  the  designated  or 
implied  penalty.  A  league  between  independent  nations  generally  has 
no  sanction  other  than  a  moral  one;  or  if  it  should  contain  a  penalty, 
as  there  is  no  common  superior,  it  cannot  be  enforced.  A  govern 
ment,  on  the  contrary,  always  has  a  sanction,  express  or  implied,  and 
in  our  case  it  is  both  necessarily  implied  and  expressly  given.  An  at 
tempt,  by  force  of  arms,  to  destroy  a  government  is  an  offence  by 
whatever  means  the  constitutional  compact  may  have  been  formed, 


AN- DREW  JACK  SO  K.  2  93 

and  such  government  has  the  right,  by  the  law  of  self-defence,  to  pass 
acts  for  punishing  the  offender,unless  that  right  is  modified,  restrained, 
or  resumed  by  the  constitutional  act.  In  our  system,  although  it  is 
modified  in  the  case  of  treason,  yet  authority  is  expressly  given  to  pass 
all  laws  necessary  to  carry  its  powers  into  effect  and  under  this  grant 
provision  has  been  made  for  punishing  acts  which  obstruct  the  due  ad 
ministration  of  the  laws. 

It  would  seem  superfluous  to  add  anything  to  show  the  nature  of 
that  union  which  connects  us;  but  as  erroneous  opinions  on  this  sub 
ject  are  the  foundation  of  doctrines  the  most  destructive  to  our  peace, 
1  must  give  some  further  development  to  my  views  on  this  subject. 
No  one,  fellow-citizens,  has  a  higher  reverence  for  the  reserved  rights 
of  the  states  than  the  magistrate  who  now  addresses  you.  No  one 
would  make  greater  personal  sacrifices  or  official  exertions  to  defend 
them  from  violation,  but  equal  care  must  be  taken  to  prevent  on  their 
part  an  improper  interference  with  or  resumption  of  the  rights  they 
have  vested  in  the  nation.  The  line  has  not  been  so  distinctly  drawn 
as  to  avoid  doubts  in  some  cases  of  the  exercise  of  power.  Men  of 
the  best  intentions  and  soundest  views  may  differ  in  their  construction 
of  some  parts  of  the  Constitution,  but  there  are  others  on  which  dis 
passionate  reflection  can  leave  no  doubt.  Of  this  nature  appears  to 
be  the  assumed  right  of  secession.  It  treats,  as  we  have  seen,  on  the 
alleged  undivided  sovereignty  of  the  states,  and  on  their  having 
formed,  in  this  sovereign  capacity,  a  compact  which  is  called  the  Con 
stitution,  from  which,  because  the)''  made  it>  they  have  the  right  to 
secede.  Both  of  these  positions  are  erroneous,  and  some  of  the  argu 
ments  to  prove  them  so  have  been  anticipated. 

The  ''states  severally  have  not  retained  their  entire  sovereignty.  It 
has  been  shown  that  in  becoming  parts  of  a  nation,  not  members  of  a 
league,  they  surrendered  many  of  their  essential  parts  of  sovereignty. 
The  right  to  make  treaties,  declare  war,  levy  taxes,  exercise  exclusive 
judicial  and  legislative  powers,  were  all  of  them  functions  of  sovereign 
power.  The  states,  then,  for  all  these  purposes,  were  no  longer  sov 
ereign.  The  allegiance  of  their  citizens  was  transferred  in  the  first  in 
stance  to  the  government  of  the  United  States.  They  became  Amer 
ican  citizens,  and  owed  obedience  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  to  laws  made  in  conformity  with  the  powers  it  vested  in 
Congress.  This  last  position  has  not  been  and  cannot  be  denied. 
How,  then,  can  that  state  be  said  to  be  sovereign  and  independent 
whose  citizens  owe  obedience  to  laws  not  made  by  it,  and  whose  mag 
istrates  are  sworn  to  disregard  those  laws  when  they  come  in  conflict 
with  those  passed  by  another?  What  shows  conclusively  that  the 
states  cannot  be  said  to  have  reserved  an  undivided  sovereignty  is, 
that  they  expressly  ceded-  the  right  to  punish  treason — not  treason 
against  their  separate  power,  but  treason  against  the  United  States. 
Treason  is  an  offence  against  sovereignty,  and  sovereignty  must  re» 


294  A.  M  ERIC  A  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

side  with  the  power  to  punish  it.  But  the  reserved  rights  of  the 
states  are  not  less  sacred  because  they  have,  for  their  common  interest, 
made  the  general  government  the  depository  of  these  powers. 

The  unity  of  our  political  character  (as  has  been  shown  lor  another 
purpose)  commenced  with  its  very  existence.  Under  the  royal  gov 
ernment  we  had  no  separate  character;  our  opposition  to  its  op- 
p?ession  began  as  united  colonies.  We  were  the  United  States 
under  the  confederation,  and  the  name  was  perpetuated,  and  the 
Union  rendered  more  perfect,  by  the  federal  constitution.  In  none 
of  these  stages  did  we  consider  ourselves  in  any  other  light  than  as 
forming  one  nation.  Treaties  and  alliances  were  made  in  the  name 
of  all.  Troops  were  raised  for  the  joint  defence.  How,  then,  with 
all  these  proofs,  that  under  all  changes  of  our  position  we  had  for 
designated  purposes  and  defined  powers,  created  national  govern 
ments — how  is  it  that  the  most  perfect  of  those  several  modes  of 
union  should  now  be  considered  as  a  mere  league  that  may  be  dis 
solved  at  pleasure?  It  is  from  an  abuse  of  terms.  Compact  is  used 
as  synonymous  with  league,  although  the  true  term  is  not  employed, 
because  it  would  at  once  show  the  fallacy  of  the  reasoning.  It  would 
not  do  to  say  that  our  constitution  was  only  a  league,  but  it  is  labored 
to  prove  it  a  compact  (which  in  one  sense  it  is),  and  then  to  argue  that 
as  a  league  is  a  compact,  every  compact  between  nations  must,  of 
course,  be  a  league,  and  that  from  such  an  engagement  every  sover 
eign  power  has  a  right  to  recede.  But  it  has  been  shown  that,  in  this 
sense,  the  states  are  not  sovereign,  and  that  even  if  they  were,  and  the 
national  constitution  had  been  formed  by  compact,  there  would  be  no 
right  in  any  one  state  to  exonerate  itself  from  its  obligations. 

So  obvious  are  the  reasons  which  forbid  this  secession,  that  it  is 
necessary  only  to  allude  to  them.  The  Union  was  formed  for  the 
benefit  of  all.  It  was  produced  by  mutual  sacrifices  of  interests  and 
opinions.  Can  those  sacrifices  be  recalled  ?  Can  the  states,  who 
magnanimously  surrendered  their  title  to  the  territories  of  the  west, 
recall  the  grant  ?  Will  the  inhabitants  of  the  inland  states  agree  to 
pay  the  duties  that  may  be  imposed  without  their  assent  by  those  on 
the  Atlantic  or  the  Gulf,  for  their  own  benefit  ?  Shall  there  be  a  free 
port  in  one  state  and  onerous  duties  in  another  ?  No  one  believes 
that  any  right  exists  in  a  single  state  to  involve  all  the  others  in  these 
and  countless  other  evils  contrary  to  the  engagements  solemnly  made. 
Every  one  must  see  that  the  other  states,  in  self-defence,  must  oppose 
it  at  all  hazards. 

These  are  the  alternatives  that  are  presented  by  the  convention:  a 
repeal  of  all  the  acts  for  raising  revenue,  leaving  the  government  with 
out  the  means  of  support,  or  an  acquiescence  in  the  dissolution  of  our 
Union  by  the  secession  of  one  of  its  members.  When  the  first  was 
proposed,  it  was  known  that  it  could  not  be  listened  to  for  a  moment. 
It  was  known,  if  force  was  applied  to  oppose  the  execution  of  the 


ANDRE  W  JA  CKSON.  295 

laws  that  it  must  be  repelled  by  force:  that  Congress  could  not,  with 
out  involving  itself  in  disgrace  and  the  country  in  ruin,  accede  to  the 
proposition;  and  yet  if  this  is  not  done  in  a  given  day,  or  if  any  at 
tempt  is  made  to  execute  the  laws,  the  state  is,  by  the  ordinance, 
declared  to  be  out  of  the  Union.  The  majority  of  a  convention  as 
sembled  for  the  purpose  have  dictated  these  terms,  or  rather  this  re 
jection  of  all  terms,  in  the  name  of  the  people  of  South  Carolina  It 
is  true  that  the  governor  of  the  state  speaks  of  the  submission  of  cheir 
grievances  to  a  convention  of  all  the  states,  which,  he  says,  they 
*'  sincerely  and  anxiously  seek  and  desire."  Yet  this  obvious  and 
constitutional  mode  of  obtaining  the  sense  of  the  other  states  on  the 
construction  of  the  federal  compact,  and  amending  it,  if  necessary, 
has  never  been  attempted  by  those  who  have  urged  the  state  on  to 
this  destructive  measure.  The  state  might  have  proposed  the  call  for 
a  general  convention  to  the  other  states,  and  Congress,  if  a  sufficient 
number  of  them  concurred,  must  have  called  it.  But  the  first  magis 
trate  of  South  Carolina,  when  he  expressed  a  hope  that,  "  on  a  review 
by  Congress,  and  the  functionaries  of  the  general  government  of  the 
merits  of  the  controversy,"  such  a  convention  will  be  accorded  to 
them,  must  have  known  that  neither  Congress  nor  any  functionary  of 
the  general  government  has  authority  to  call  such  a  convention,  unless 
it  be  demanded  by  two-thirds  of  the  states.  This  suggestion,  then,  is 
another  instance  of  the  reckless  inattention  to  the  provisions  of  the 
constitution  with  which  this  crisis  has  been  madly  hurried  on,  or  of 
the  attempt  to  persuade  the  people  that  a  constitutional  remedy  had 
been  sought  and  refused.  If  the  legislature  of  South  Carolina  "  anxi 
ously  desire"  a  general  convention  to  consider  their  complaints,  why 
have  they  not  made  application  for  it  in  the  way  the  constitution 
points  out  ?  The  assertion  that  they  "  earnestly  seek  it"  is  completely 
negatived  by  the  omission. 

This,  then,  is  the  position  in  which  we  stand.  A  small  majority  of 
the  citizens  of  one  state  in  the  Union  have  elected  delegates  to  a  state 
convention,  that  convention  has  ordained  that  all  the  revenue  laws  of 
the  United  States  must  be  repealed,  or  that  they  are  no  longer  a 
member  of  the  Union.  The  governor  of  that  state  has  recommended 
to  the  legislature  the  raising  of  an  army  to  carry  the  secession  into 
effect,  and  that  he  may  be  empowered  to  give  clearances  to  vessels  in 
the  name  of  the  state.  No  act  of  violent  opposition  to  the  laws  has 
yet  been  committed,  but  such  a  state  of  things  is  hourly  apprehended, 
and  it  is  the  intent  of  this  instrument  to  proclaim,  not  only  that  the 
duty  imposed  on  me  by  the  constitution  "  to  take  care  that  the  laws  be 
faithfully  executed,"  shall  be  performed  to  the  extent  of  the  powers 
already  vested  in  me  by  law,  or  of  such  others  as  the  wisdom  of  Con 
gress  shall  devise  and  intrust  to  me  for  that  purpose,  but  to  warn  the 
citizens  of  South  Carolina  who  have  been  deluded  into  an  opposition 
to  the  laws,  of  the  danger  they  will  incur  by  obedience  to  the  illegal 


296  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

and  disorganizing  ordinance  of  the  convention;  to  exhort  those  who 
have  refused  to  support  it  to  persevere  in  their  determination  to  up 
hold  the  constitution  and  laws  of  their  country,  and  to  point  out  to 
all  the  perilous  situation  into  which  the  good  people  of  that  state  have 
been  led,  and  that  the  course  they  are  urged  to  pursue  is  one  of  ruin 
and  disgrace  to  the  very  state  whose  rights  they  affect  to  support. 

Fellow-citizens  of  my  native  state,  let  me  not  only  admonish  you, 
as  the  first  magistrate  of  our  common  country,  not  to  incur  the  penalty 
of  its  laws,  but  use  the  influence  that  a  father  would  over  his  children 
whom  he  saw  rushing  to  certain  ruin.  In  that  paternal  language, 
with  that  paternal  feeling,  let  me  tell  you,  my  countrymen,  that  you 
are  deluded  by  men  who  are  either  deceived  themselves  or  wish  to 
deceive  you.  Mark  under  what  pretences  you  have  been  led  on  to 
the  brink  of  insurrection  and  treason,  on  which  you  stand!  First,  a 
diminution  of  the  value  of  your  staple  commodity,  lowered  by  over 
production  in  other  quarters,  and  the  consequent  diminution  in  the 
value  of  your  lands,  were  the  sole  effect  of  the  tariff  laws. 

The  effect  of  those  laws  was  confessedly  injurious,  but  the  evil  was 
greatly  exaggerated  by  the  unfounded  theory  you  were  taught  to  be 
lieve,  that  its  burdens  were  in  proportion  to  your  exports,  not  to  your 
consumption  of  imported  articles.  Your  pride  was  roused  by  the  as 
sertion  that  a  submission  to  those  laws  was  a  state  of  vassalage,  and 
that  resistance  to  them  was  equal,  in  patriotic  merit,  to  the  oppositions 
our  fathers  offered  to  the  oppressive  laws  of  Great  Britain.  You  were 
told  that  this  opposition  might  be  peaceably — might  be  constitutionally 
made;  that  you  might  enjoy  all  the  advantages  of  the  Union,  and  bear 
none  of  its  burdens.  Eloquent  appeals  to  your  passions,  to  your 
state  pride,  to  your  native  courage,  to  your  sense  of  real  injury,  were 
used  to  prepare  you  for  the  period  when  the  mask,  which  concealed 
the  hideous  features  of  disunion  should  be  taken  off.  It  fell,  and  you 
were  made  to  look  with  complacency  on  objects  \vhich,  not  long 
since,  you  would  have  regarded  with  horror.  Look  back  to  the  arts 
which  have  brought  you  to  this  state;  look  forward  to  the  conse 
quences  to  which  it  must  inevitably  lead!  Look  back  to  what  was 
first  told  you  as  an  inducement  to  enter  into  this  dangerous  course. 
The  great  political  truth  was  repeated  to  you,  that  you  had  the  revo 
lutionary  right  of  resisting  all  laws  that  were  palpably  unconstitutional 
and  intolerably  oppressive;  it  was  added  that  the  right  to  nullify  a  law 
rested  on  the  same  principle,  but  that  it  was  a  peaceable  remedy' 
This  character  which  was  given  to  it  made  you  receive,  with  too 
much  confidence,  the  assertions  that  were  made  of  the  unconstitution 
ally  of  the  law  and  its  oppressive  effects.  Mark,  my  fellow-citizens, 
that,  by  the  admission  of  your  leaders,  the  unconstitutionally  must  be 
palpable,  or  it  will  not  justify  either  resistance  or  nullification!  Whal 
is  the  meaning  of  the  word  palpable  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  here 
used?  That  which  is  apparent  tg  every  one;  that  which  no  man  of 


A  A"£>A'£  IV  JA  CA'SOA'.  297 

ordinary  intellect  will  fail  to  perceive.  Is  the  unconstitutionality  of 
these  laws  of  that  description  ?  Let  those  among  your  leaders,  who 
once  approved  and  advocated  the  principle  of  productive  duties,  an 
swer  the  question,  and  let  them  choose  whether  they  will  be  con 
sidered  as  incapable,  then,  of  perceiving  that  which  must  have  been 
apparent  to  every  man  of  common  understanding,  or  as  imposing 
upon  your  confidence,  and  endeavoring  to  mislead  you  now.  In 
either  case  they  are  unsafe  guides  in  the  perilous  path  they  urge  you 
to  tread.  Ponder  well  on  this  circumstance,  and  you  will  know  how 
to  appreciate  the  exaggerated  language  they  address  to  you.  They 
are  not  champions  of  liberty  emulating  the  fame  of  our  revolutionary 
fathers;  nor  are  you  an  oppressed  people,  contending,  as  they  repeat 
to  you,  against  worse  than  colonial  vassalage. 

You  are  free  members  of  a  flourishing  and  happy  Union.  There  is 
no  settled  design  to  oppress  you.  You  have  indeed  felt  the  unequal 
operation  of  laws  which  may  have  been  unwisely,  not  unconstitution 
ally  passed;  but  that  inequality  must  necessarily  be  removed.  At  the 
very  moment  when  you  were  madly  urged  on  to  the  unfortunate  course 
you  have  begun,  a  change  in  public  opinion  had  commenced.  The 
nearly  approaching  payment  of  the  public  debt,  and  the  consequent 
necessity  of  a  diminution  of  duties,  had  already  produced  a  considerable 
reduction,  and  that,  too,  on  some  articles  of  general  consumption  in 
your  State.  The  importance  of  this  change  was  underrated,  and  you 
were  authoritatively  told  that  no  further  alleviation  of  your  burdens 
was  to  be  expected  at  the  very  time  when  the  condition  of  the  country 
imperiously  demanded  such  a  modification  of  the  duties  as  should  re 
duce  them  to  a  just  and  equitable  scale.  But  as  if  apprehensive  of  the 
effect  of  this  change  in  allaying  your  discontents,  you  were  precipitated 
into  the  fearful  state  in  which  you  now  find  yourselves. 

I  have  urged  you  to  look  back  to  the  means  that  were  used  to  hurry 
you  on  to  the  position  you  have  now  assumed,  and  forward  to  the 
consequences  it  will  produce.  Something  more  is  necessary.  Con 
template  the  condition  of  that  country  of  which  you  still  form  an  im 
portant  part.  Consider  its  government  uniting  in  one  bond  of  common 
interest  and  general  protection  so  many  different  States — giving  to  all 
their  inhabitants  the  proud  title  of  American  citizens,  protecting  their 
commerce,  securing  their  literature  and  their  arts;  facilitating  their  in 
tercommunication;  defending  their  frontiers;  and  making  their  name 
respected  in  the  remotest  parts  of  the  earth.  Consider  the  extent  of 
its  territory;  its  increasing  and  happy  population;  its  advance  in  arts 
which  render  life  agreeable;  and  the  sciences  which  elevate  the  mind  ! 
See  education  spreading  the  lights  of  religion,  morality,  and  general  in 
formation  into  every  cottage  in  this  wide  extent  of  our  Territories 
and  States  !  Behold  it  as  the  asylum  where  the  wretched  and  the 
oppressed  find  a  refuge  and  support!  Look  on  this  picture  of  happi 
ness  and  honor,  and  say.  we,-  too,  are  Citizens  of  America!  Caro- 


298  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

lina  is  one  of  these  proud  States;  her  arms  have  defended,  her  best 
blood  has  cemented,  this  happy  Union  !  And  then  add,  if  you  can, 
without  horror  and  remorse,  this  happy  Union  we  will  dissolve  ;  this 
picture  of  peace  and  prosperity  we  will  deface;  this  free  intercourse  we 
will  interrupt;  these  fertile  fields  we  will  deluge  with  blood;  the  pro 
tection  of  that  glorious  flag  we  renounce;  the  very  name  of  Americans 
we  discard.  And  for  what,  mistaken  men;  for  what  do  you  throw 
away  these  inestimable  blessings  ?  For  what  would  you  exchange 
your  share  in  the  advantages  and  honor  of  the  Union  ?  For  the  dream 
of  separate  independence — a  dream  interrupted  by  bloody  conflicts 
with  your  neighbors,  and  a  vile  dependence  on  a  foreign  power.  If 
your  leaders  could  suceed  in  establishing  a  separation,  what  would  be 
your  situation  ?  Are  you  united  at  home;  are  you  free  from  the  appre 
hension  of  civil  discord,  with  all  its  fearful  consequences  ?  Do  our 
neighboring  republics,  every  day  suffering  some  new  revolution,  or 
contending  with  some  new  insurrection — do  they  excite  your  envy? 
But  the  dictates  of  a  high  duty  oblige  me  solemnly  to  announce  that 
you  cannot  succeed.  The  laws  of  the  United  States  must  be  executed 
I  have  no  discretionary  power  on  the  subject;  my  duty  is  emphatically 
pronounced  in  the  Constitution.  Those  who  told  you  that  you  might 
peaceably  prevent  their  execution  deceived  you;  they  could  not  have 
been  deceived  themselves.  They  know  that  a  forcible  opposition  could 
alone  prevent  the  execution  of  the  laws,  and  the  know  that  such  opposi 
tion  must  be  repelled.  Their  object  is  disunion;  but  be  not  deceived  by 
names;  disunion,  by  armed  force,  is  treason.  Are  you  really  ready 
to  incur  its  guilt  ?  If  you  are,  on  the  heads  of  the  instigators  of  the 
act  be  the  dreadful  consequences;  on  their  heads  be  the  dishonor,  but 
on  yours  may  fall  the  punishment.  On  your  unhappy  State  will  ine 
vitably  fall  all  the  evils  of  the  conflict  you  force  upon  the  government 
of  your  country.  It  cannot  accede  to  the  mad  project  of  disunion,  of 
which  you  would  be  the  first  victims;  its  first  magistrate  cannot,  if  he 
would,  avoid  the  performance  of  his  duty.  The  consequence  must  be 
fearful  for  you,  distressing  to  your  fellow-citizens  here,  and  to  the 
friends  of  good  government  throughout  the  world.  Its  enemies  have 
beheld  our  prosperity  with  a  vexation  they  could  not  conceal;  it  was 
a  standing  refutation  of  their  slavish  doctrines,  and  they  will  point  to 
our  discord  with  the  triumph  of  malignant  joy.  It  is  yet  in  your  power 
to  disappoint  them.  There  is  yet  time  to  show  that  the  descendants 
of  the  Pinckneys,  the  Sumters,  the  Rutledges,  and  of  the  thousand 
other  names  which  adorn  the  pages  of  your  revolutionary  history,  will 
not  abandon  that  Union,  to  support  which  so  many  of  them  fought, 
and  bled,  and  died. 

I  adjure  you,  as  you  honor  their  memory,  as  you  love  the  cause  of 
freedom,  to  which  they  dedicated  their  lives,  as  you  prize  the  peace  of 
your  country,  the  lives  of  its  best  citizens,  and  your  own  fair  fame,  to 
retrace  your  steps.  Snatch  from  the  archives  of  your  State  the  disor- 


ANDREW  JACKSON.  299 

ganizing  edict  of  its  convention;  bid  its  members  to  reassemble,  and 
promulgate  the  decided  expressions  of  your  will  to  remain  in  the  path 
\vhich  alone  can  conduct  you  to  safety,  prosperity,  and  honor.  Tell 
them  that,  compared  to  disunion,  all  other  evils  are  light,  because  that 
brings  with  it  an  accumulation  of  all.  Declare  that  you  will  never  take 
the  field  unless  the  star-spangled  banner  or  your  country  shall  float 
over  you;  that  you  will  not  be  stigmatized  when  dead,  and  dishonored 
and  scorned  while  you  live,  as  the  autnors  of  the  first  attack  on  the 
Constitution  of  your  country.  Its  destroyers  you  cannot  be.  You 
may  disturb  its  peace — you  may  interrupt  the  course  of  its  prosperity 
— you  may  cloud  its  reputation  for  stability,  but  its  tranquillity  will  be 
restored,  its  prosperity  will  return,  and  the  stain  upon  its  national  char 
acter  will  be  transferred  and  remain  an  eternal  blot  on  the  memory  of 
those  who  caused  the  disorder. 

Fellow-citizens  of  the  United  States:  The  threat  of  unhallowed  dis 
union — the  names  of  those  once  respected,  by  whom  it  is  uttered — the 
array  of  military  force  to  support  it — denote  the  approach  of  a  crisis 
in  our  affairs  on  which  the  continuance  of  our  unexampled  prosperity, 
our  political  existence,  and  perhaps  that  of  all  free  governments  may 
depend.  The  conjuncture  demanded  a  free,  a  full,  and  explicit  enun 
ciation,  not  only  of  my  intentions,  but  of  my  principles  of  action;  and, 
as  the  claim  was  asserted  of  a  right  by  a  State  to  annul  the  laws  of  the 
Union,  and  even  to  secede  from  it  at  pleasure,  a  frank  exposition  of 
my  opinions  in  relation  to  the  origin  and  form  of  our  government,  and 
the  construction  I  give  to  the  instrument  by  which  it  was  created, 
seemed  to  be  proper.  Having  the  fullest  confidence  in  the  justness  of 
the  legal  and  constitutional  opinion  of  my  duties,  which  has  been  ex 
pressed,  I  rely,  with  equal  confidence,  on  your  undivided  support  in 
my  determination  to  execute  the  laws,  to  preserve  the  Union  by  all 
constitutional  means,  to  arrest,  if  possible,  by  moderate  but  firm  mea 
sures,  the  necessity  of  a  recourse  to  force;  and,  if  it  be  the  will  of 
Heaven,  that  the  recurrence  of  its  primeval  curse  on  man  for  the  shed 
ding  of  a  brother's  blood  should  fall  upon  our  land,  that  it  be  not  called 
down  by  an  offensive  act  on  the  part  of  the  United  States. 

Fellow-citizens  :  The  momentous  case  is  before  you.  On  your  un 
divided  support  of  your  government  depends  the  decision  of  the  great 
question  it  involves,  whether  your  sacred  Union  will  be  preserved,  and 
the  blessings  it  secures  to  us  as  one  people  shall  be  perpetuated.  No 
one  can  doubt  that  the  unanimity  with  which  that  decision  will  be  ex 
pressed  will  be  such  as  to  inspire  new  confidence  in  republican  insti 
tutions,  and  that  the  prudence,  the  wisdom,  and  the  courage  which  it 
will  bring  to  their  defence  will  transmit  them  unimpaired  and  invigo 
rated  to  our  children. 

May  the  Great  Ruler  of  nations  grant  that  the  signal  blessings  with 
which  he  has  favored  ours  may  not,  by  the  madness  of  party  or  per 
sonal  ambition,  be  disregarded  and  lost;  and  may  his  wise  Providence 


300  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

bring  those  who  have  produced  this  crisis  to  see  their  folly  before  they 
feel  the  misery  of  civil  strife,  and  inspire  a  returning  veneration  for 
that  Union  which,  if  we  may  dare  to  penetrate  his  designs,  he  has 
chosen  as  the  only  means  of  attaining  the  high  destinies  to  which  we 
may  reasonably  aspire. 

In  testimony  whereof,  I  have  caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States 
to  be  hereunto  affixed,  having  signed  the  same  with  my  hand. 

Done  at  the  City  of  Washington,  this  loth  day  of  December,  in  the 
year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty-two,  and  of 
the  independence  of  the  United  States  the  fifty-seventh. 

ANDREW  JACKSON. 
By  the  President : 

EDW.  LIVINGSTON, 

Secretary  of  State. 


LAFAYETTE. 
JOHN    QUINCY    ADAMS. 

Washington,  Dec.  31,  1834. 

On  the  6th  of  September,  1757,  Lafayette  was  born.  The  kings  of 
France  and  Britain  were  seated  upon  their  thrones  by  virtue  of  the 
principle  of  hereditary  succession,  variously  modified  and  blended 
with  different  forms  of  religious  faith,  and  they  were  waging  war 
against  each  other,  and  exhausting  the  blood  and  treasure  of  their 
people  for  causes  in  which  neither  of  the  nations  had  any  beneficial  or 
lawful  interest. 

In  this  war  the  father  of  Lafayette  fell  in  the  cause  of  his  king,  but 
not  of  his  country.  He  was  an  officer  of  an  invading  army,  the 
instrument  of  his  sovereign's  wanton  ambition  and  lust  of  conquest. 
The  people  of  the  electorate  of  Hanover  had  done  no  wrong  to  him 
or  to  his  country.  When  his  son  came  to  an  age  capable  of  under 
standing  the  irreparable  loss  that  he  had  suffered,  and  to  reflect  upon 
the  causes  of  his  father's  fate,  there  was  no  drop  of  consolation 
mingled  in  the  cup.,  from  the  consideration  that  he  had  died  for 
his  country.  And  when  the  youthful  mind  was  awakened  to  medita 
tion  upon  the  rights  of  mankind,  the  principles  of  freedom,  and 
theories  of  government,  it  cannot  be  difficult  to  perceive,  in  the  illus 
trations  of  his  own  family  records,  the  source  of  that  aversion  to  her 
editary  rule,  perhaps  the  most  distinguishing  feature  of  his  political 
opinions,  and  to  which  he  adhered  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  his 
life. 

In  the  same  war,  and  at  the  same  time,  George  Washington  was 
armed,  a  loyal  subject,  in  support  of  his  king;  but  to  him  tlvat^was 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS.  3O1 

also  the  cause  of  his  country.  His  commission  was  not  in  the  army 
of  George  the  Second,  but  issued  under  the  authority  of  the  Colony  of 
Virginia,  the  province  in  which  he  received  his  birth.  On  the  borders 
of  that  province,  the  war  in  its  most  horrid  forms  was  waged — not  a 
war  of  mercy,  and  of  courtesy,  like  that  of  the  civilized  embattled 
legions  of  Europe;  but  war  to  the  knife — the  war  of  Indian  savages, 
terrible  to  man,  but  more  terrible  to  the  tender  sex,  and  most  terrible 
to  helpless  infancy.  In  defence  of  his  country  against  the  ravages  of 
such  a  war.  Washington,  in  the  dawn  of  manhood,  had  drawn  his 
sword,  as  if  Providence,  with  deliberate  purpose,  had  sanctified  for 
him  the  practice  of  war,  all-detestable  and  unhallowed  as  it  is,  that  he 
might,  in  a  cause,  virtuous  and  exalted  by  its  motive  and  its  end,  be 
trained  and  fitted  in  a  congenial  school  to  march  in  after  times  the 
leader  of  heroes  in  the  war  of  his  country's  independence. 

At  the  time  of  the  birth  of  Lafayette,  this  war,  which  was  to  make 
him  a  fatherless  child,  and  in  which  Washington  was  laying  broad  and 
deep,  in  the  defence  and  protection  of  his  native  land,  the  foundations 
of  his  unrivalled  renown,  was  but  in  its  early  stage.  It  was  to  con 
tinue  five  years  longer,  and  was  to  close  with  the  total  extinguishment 
of  the  colonial  dominion  of  France  on  the  Continent  of  North  America. 
The  deep  humiliation  of  France,  and  the  triumphant  ascendancy  on 
this  Continent  of  her  rival,  were  the  first  results  of  this  great  national 
conflict.  The  complete  expulsion  of  France  from  North  America 
seemed  to  the  superficial  vision  of  men  to  fix  the  British  power  over 
these  extensive  regions  on  foundations  immovable  as  the  everlasting 
hills. 

Let  us  pass  in  imagination  a  period  of  only  twenty  years,  and  alight 
upon  the  borders  of  the  river  Brandywine.  Washington  is  Com 
mander-in-chief  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States  of  America — war  is 
again  raging  in  the  heart  of  his  native  land — hostile  armies  of  one  and 
the  same  name,  blood,  and  language,  are  arrayed  for  battle  on  the 
banks  of  the  stream;  and  Philadelphia,  where  the  United  States  are  in 
Congress  assembled,  and  whence  their  decree  of  independence  has 
gone  forth,  is  the  destined  prize  to  the  conflict  of  the  day.  Who  is 
that  tall,  slender  youth,  of  foreign  air  and  aspect,  scarcely  emerged 
from  the  years  of  boyhood,  and  fresh  from  the  walls  of  a  college; 
fighting,  a  volunteer,  at  the  side  of  Washington,  bleeding,  uncon 
sciously  to  himself,  and  rallying  his  men  to  secure  the  retreat  of  the 
scattered  American  ranks  ?  It  is  Gilbert  Motier  de  Lafayette — the 
son  of  the  victim  of  Minden;  and  he  is  bleeding  in  the  cause  of  North 
American  independence  and  of  freedom. 

We  pause  one  moment  to  inquire  what  was  this  cause  of  North 
American  Independence,  and  what  were  the  motives  and  inducements 
to  the  youthful  stranger  to  devote  himself,  his  life,  and  fortune,  to  it. 

The  people  of  the  British  colonies  in  North  America,  after  a  con 
troversy  of  ten  years'  duration  with  their  sovereign  beyond  the  seas, 


302  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

upon  an  attempt  by  him  and  his  Parliament  to  tax  them  without  their 
consent,  had  been  constrained  by  necessity  to  declare  themselves  in- 
pendent — to  dissolve  the  tie  of  their  allegiance  to  him — to  renounce 
their  right  to  his  protection,  and  to  assume  their  station  among  the 
independent  civilized  nations  of  the  earth.  This  had  been  done  with 
a  deliberation  and  solemnity  unexampled  in  the  history  of  the  world — 
done  in  the  midst  of  a  civil  war,  differing  in  character  from  any  of 
those  which  for  centuries  before  had  desolated  Europe.  The  war  had 
arisen  upon  a  question  between  the  rights  of  the  people  and  the 
powers  of  their  government.  The  discussions,  in  the  progress  of  the 
controversy,  had  opened  to  the  contemplations  of  men  the  first  foun 
dations  of  civil  society  and  of  government.  The  war.  of  independence 
began  by  litigation  upon  a  petty  stamp  on  paper,  and  a  tax  of  three 
pence  a  pound  upon  tea;  but  these  broke  up  the  fountains  of  the  great 
deep,  and  the  deluge  ensued.  Had  the  British  Parliament  the  right 
to  tax  the  people  of  the  Colonies  in  another  hemisphere,  not  repre 
sented  in  the  Imperial  Legislature?  They  affirmed  they  had:  the 
people  of  the  colonies  insisted  they  had  not.  There  were  ten  years 
of  pleading  before  they  came  to  an  issue;  and  all  the  legitimate 
sources  of  power,  and  all  the  primitive  elements  of  freedom,  were 
scrutinized,  debated,  analyzed,  and  elucidated,  before  the  lighting  of 
the  torch  of  Ate,  and  her  cry  of  havoc  upon  letting  slip  the  dogs  of 
war. 

When  the  day  of  conflict  came,  the  issue  of  the  contest  was  neces 
sarily  changed.  The  people  of  the  Colonies  had  maintained  the  con 
test  on  the  principle  of  resisting  the  invasion  of  chartered  rights — 
first  by  argument  and  remonstrance,  and,  finally,  by  appeal  to  the 
sword.  But  with  the  war  came  the  necessary  exercise  of  sovereign 
powers.  The  Declaration  of  Independence  justified  itself  as  the  only 
possible  remedy  for  insufferable  wrongs.  It  seated  itself  upon  the 
first  foundations  of  the  law  of  nature,  and  the  incontestable  doctrine 
of  human  rights.  There  was  no  longer  any  question  of  the  constitu 
tional  powers  of  the  British  Parliament,  or  of  violated  colonial  char 
ters.  Thenceforward  the  American  nation  supported  its  existence  by 
war;  and  the  British  nation,  by  war,  was  contending  for  conquest. 
As,  between  the  two  parties,  the  single  question  at  issue  was  Inde 
pendence — but  in  the  confederate  existence  of  the  «North  American 
Union,  Liberty — not  only  their  own  liberty,  but  the  vital  principle  of 
liberty  to  the  whole  race  of  civilized  man,  was  involved. 

It  was  at  this  stage  of  the  conflict,  and  immediately  after  the  Dec 
laration  of  Independence,  that  it  drew  the  attention,  and  called  into 
action  the  moral  sensibilities  and  the  intellectual  faculties  of  Lafayette, 
then  in  the  nineteenth  year  of  his  age. 

The  war  was  revolutionary.  It  began  by  the  dissolution  of  the 
British  Government  in  the  colonies;  the  people  of  which  were,  by 
that  operation,  left  without  any  government  whatever.  They  were 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS.  303 

then  at  one  and  the  same  time  maintaining  their  independent  national 
existence  by  war,  and  forming  new  social  compacts  for  their  own 
government  thenceforward.  The  construction  of  civil  society;  the 
extent  and  the  limitations  of  organized  power;  the  establishment  of  a 
system  of  government  combining  the  greatest  enlargement  of  indi 
vidual  liberty  with  the  most  perfect  preservation  of  public  order,  were 
the  continual  occupations  of  every  mind.  The  consequences  of  this 
state  of  things  to  the  history  of  mankind,  and  especially  of  Europe, 
were  foreseen  by  none.  Europe  saw  nothing  but  the  war;  a  people 
struggling  for  liberty,  and  against  oppression;  and  the  people  in  every 
part  of  Europe  sympathized  with  the  people  of  the  American  colo 
nies. 

With  their  governments  it  was  not  so.  The  people  of  the  American 
colonies  were  insurgents;  all  governments  abhor  insurrection.  They 
were  revolted  colonists;  the  great  maritime  powers  of  Europe  had 
colonies  of  their  own,  to  which  the  example  of  resistance  against 
oppression  might  be  contagious.  The  American  colonies  were  stig 
matized  in  all  the  official  acts  of  the  British  Government  as  rebels; 
and  rebellion  to  the  governing  part  of  mankind  is  as  the  sin  of  witch 
craft.  The  governments  of  Europe,  therefore,  were  at  heart,  on  the 
side  of  the  British  Government  in  this  war,  and  the  people  of  Europe 
were  on  the  side  of  the  American  people. 

Lafayette,  by  his  position  and  condition  in  life,  was  one  of  those 
who,  governed  by  the  ordinary  impulses  which  influence  and  control 
the  conduct  of  men,  would  have  sided  in  sentiment  with  the  British  or 
royal  cause. 

Lafayette  was  born  a  subject  of  the  most  absolute  and  most  splen 
did  monarchy  of  Europe;  and  in  the  highest  rank  of  her  proud  and 
chivalrous  nobility.  He  had  been  educated  at  a  college  of  the  Uni 
versity  of  Paris,  founded  by  the  royal  munificence  of  Louis  the  Four 
teenth,  or  Cardinal  Richelieu.  Left  an  orphan  in  early  childhood, 
with  the  inheritance  of  a  princely  fortune,  he  had  been  married  at  six 
teen  years  of  age,  to  a  daughter  of  the  house  of  Noailles,  the  most 
distinguished  family  of  the  kingdom,  scarcely  deemed  in  public  con 
sideration  inferior  to  that  which  wore  the  crown.  He  came  into  active 
life,  at  the  change  from  boy  to  man,  a  husband  and  a  father,  in  the 
full  enjoyment  of  everything  that  avarice  could  covet,  with  a  certain 
prospect  before  him  of  all  that  ambition  could  crave.  Happy  in 
his  domestic  affections,  incapable,  from  the  benignity  of  his  nature,  of 
envy,  hatred,  or  revenge,  a  life  of  "ignoble  ease  and  indolent  repose" 
seemed  to  be  that  which  nature  and  fortune  had  combined  to  prepare 
before  him.  To  men  of  ordinary  mould  this  condition  would  have  Ij^d 
to  a  life  of  luxurious  apathy  and  sensual  indulgence.  Such  was  the 
life  into  which,  from  the  operation  of  the  same  causes,  Louis  the  Fif 
teenth  had  sunk,  with  his  household  and  court,  while  Lafayette  was 
rising  to  manhood  surrounded  by  the  contamination  of  their  example. 


3°4  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM.  ''   .? 

Had  his  natural  endowments  been  even  of  the  higher  and  nobler  order 
of  such  as  adhere  to  virtue,  even  in  the  lap  of  prosperity,  and  in  the 
bosom  of  temptation,  he  might  have  lived  and  died  a  pattern  of  the 
nobility  of  France,  to  be  classed,  in  aftertimes,  with  the  Turennes  and 
the  Montausiers  of  the  age  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  or  with  the  Viiiars 
or  the  Lamoignons  of  the  age  immediately  preceding  his  own. 

But  as,  in  the  firmament  of  heaven  that  rolls  over  our  heads,  there 
is,  among  the  stars  of  the  first  magnitude,  one  so  pre-eminent  in 
splendor,  as  in  the  opinion  of  astronomers,  to  constitute  a  class  by 
itself;  so  in  the  fourteen  hundred  years  of  the  French  monarchy, 
among  the  multitudes  of  great  and  mighty  men  which  it  has  evolved, 
the  name  of  Lafayette  stands  unrivalled  in  the  solitude  of  glory. 

In  entering  upon  the  threshold  of  life,  a  career  was  to  open  before 
him.  He  had  the  option  of  the  court  and  the  camp.  An  office  was 
tendered  to  him  in  the  household  of  the  King's  brother,  the  Count  de 
Provence,  since  successively  a  royal  exile  and  a  reinstated  king.  The 
servitude  and  inaction  of  a  court  had  no  charms  for  him;  he  pre 
ferred  a  commission  in  the  army,  and,  at  the  time  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  was  a  captain  of  dragoons  in  garrison  at  Met/. 

There,  at  a  entertainment  given  by  his  relative,  the  Marechal  de 
Broglie,  the  commandant  of  the  place,  to  the  Duke  of  Gloucester, 
brother  to  the  British  king,  and  then  a  transient  traveller  through  that 
part  of  France,  he  learns,  as  an  incident  of  intelligence  received  that 
morning  by  the  English  Prince  from  London,  that  the  Congress  of 
rebels  at  Philadelphia,  had  issued  a  Declaration  of  Independence.  A 
conversation  ensues  upon  the  causes  which  have  contributed  to  pro 
duce  this  event,  and  upon  the  consequences  which  may  be  expected  to 
flow  from  it.  The  imagination  of  Lafayette  has  caught  across  the  At 
lantic  tide  the  spark  emitted  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence; 
his  heart  has  kindled  at  the  shock,  and,  before  he  slumbers  upon  his 
pillow,  he  has  resolved  to  devote  his  life  and  fortune  to  the  cause. 

You  have  before  you  the  cause  and  the  man.  The  self-devotion  of 
Lafayette  was  twofold.  First  to  the  people,  maintaining  a  bold  and 
seemingly  desperate  struggle  against  oppression,  and  for  national  ex 
istence.  Secondly,  and  chiefly,  to  the  principles  of  their  declaration, 
which  then  first  unfurled  before  his  eyes  the  consecrated  standard  of 
human  rights.  To  that  standard,  without  an  instant  of  hesitation, 
he  repaired.  Where  it  would  lead  him,  it  is  scarcely  probable  that  he 
himself  then  foresaw.  It  was  then  identical  with  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
of  the  American  Union,  floating  to  the  breeze  from  the  Hall  of  Inde 
pendence,  at  Philadelphia.  Nor  sordid  avarice,  nor  vulgar  ambition, 
could  point  his  footsteeps  to  the  pathway  leading  to  that  banner.  To 
the  love  of  ease  or  pleasure  nothing  could  be  more  repulsive.  Some 
thing  may  be  allowed  to  the  beatings  of  the  youthful  breast,  which 
make  ambition  virtue,  and  something  to  the  spirit  of  military  adven 
ture,  imbibed  from  his  profession,  and  which  he  felt  in  common 


JOHN  QI:LVCY  ADAMS.  305 

many  others.  France,  Germany,  Poland,  furnished  to  the  armies  of 
this  Union,  in  our  revolutionary  struggle,  no  inconsiderable  number  of 
officers  of  high  rank  and  distinguished  merit.  The  names  of  Pulaski 
and  De  Kalb  are  numbered  among  the  martyrs  of  our  freedom,  and 
their  ashes  repose  in  our  soil  side  by  side  with  the  canonized  bones  of 
Warren  and  of  Montgomery.  To  the  virtues  of  Lafayette,  a  more 
protracted  career  and  happier  earthly  destinies  were  reserved.  To  the 
moral  principle  of  political  action,  the  sacrifices  of  no  other  man  were 
comparable  to  his.  Youth,  health,  fortune;  the  favor  of  his  king;  the 
enjoyment  of  ease  and  pleasure;  even  the  choicest  blessings  of  domes 
tic  felicity — he  gave  them  all  for  toil  and  danger  in  a  distant  land,  and 
an  almost  hopeless  cause;  but  it  was  the  cause  of  justice,  and  of  the 
rights  of  human  kind. 

The  resolve  is  firmly  fixed,  and  it  now  remains  to  be  carried  into  exe 
cution.  On  the  7th  of  December,  1776,  Silas  Deane,  then  a  secret 
agent  of  the  American  Congress  at  Paris,  stipulates  with  the  Marquis  de 
Lafayette  that  he  shall  receive  a  commission,  to  date  from  that  day,  of 
Major  General  in  the  Army  of  the  United  States  ;  and  the  Marquis 
stipulates,  in  return,  to  depart  when  and  how  Mr,  Deane  shall  judge 
proper,  to  serve  the  United  States  with  all  possible  zeal,  without  pay  or 
emolument,  reserving  to  himself  only  the  liberty  of  returning  to  Europe, 
if  his  family  or  his  King  should  recall  him. 

Neither  his  family  nor  his  King  were  willing  that  he  should  depart  ; 
nor  had  Mr.  Deane  the  power,  either  to  conclude  this  contract,  or  to 
furnish  the  means  of  his  conveyance  to  America.  Difficulties  rise  up 
before  him  only  to  be  dispersed,  and  obstacles  thicken  only  to  be  sur 
mounted.  The  day  after  the  signature  of  the  contract,  Mr.  Deane's 
agency  was  superseded  by  the  arrival  of  Doctor  Benjamin  Franklin  and 
Arthur  Lee  as  his  colleagues  in  commission  ;  nor  did  they  think  them 
selves  authorized  to  confirm  his  engagements.  Lafayette  is  not  to  be 
discouraged.  The  Commissioners  extenuate  nothing  of  the  unpromising 
condition  of  their  cause.  Mr.  Deane  avows  his  inability  to  furnish  him 
with  a  passage  to  the  United  States.  "  The  more  desperate  the  cause," 
says  Lafayette,  "the  greater  need  has  it  of  my  services;  and,  if  Mr. 
"  Deane  has  no  vessel  for  my  passage,  I  shall  purchase  one  myself,  and 
•"•will  traverse  the  Ocean  with  a  selected  company  of  my  own." 

Other  impediments  arise.  His  design  becomes  known  to  the  British 
Ambassador  at  the  Court  of  Versailles,  who  remonstrates  to  the  French 
Government  against  it.  At  his  instance,  orders  are  issued  for  the  deten 
tion  of  the  vessel  purchased  by  the  Marquis,  and  fitted  out  at  Bordeaux, 
and  for  the  arrest  of  his  person.  To  elude  the  first  of  these  orders,  the 
vessel  is  removed  from  Bordeaux  to  the  neighboring  port  of  Passage, 
within  the  dominion  of  Spain.  The  order  for  his  own  arrest  is  exe 
cuted  ;  but,  by  stratagem  and  disguise,  he  escapes  from  the  custody  of 
those  who  have  him  in  charge,  and,  before  a  second  order  can  reach 
hii.'i,  he  is  safe  on  the  ocean  wave,  bound  to  the  land  of  Independence 
and  of  Freedom. 


306  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

The  war  of  American  Independence  is  closed.  The  people  of  the 
North  American  Confederation  are  in  union,  sovereign  and  independent. 
Lafayette,  at  twenty-five  years  of  age,  has  lived  the  life  of  a  patriarch, 
and  illustrated  the  career  of  a  hero.  Had  his  days  upon  earth  been  then 
numbered,  and  had  he  then  slept  with  his  fathers,  illustrious  as  for  cen 
turies  their  names  had  been,  his  name,  to  the  end  of  time,  would 
have  transcended  them  all.  Fortunate  youth !  fortunate  beyond 
even  the  measure  of  his  companions  in  arms  with  whom  he 
had  achieved  the  glorious  consummation  of  American  Independence. 
His  fame  was  all  his  own  ;  not  cheaply  earned  ;  not  ignobly  won, 
His  fellow-soldiers  had  been  the  champions  and  defenders  of  their 
country.  They  reaped  for  themselves,  for  their  wives,  their  children, 
their  posterity  to  the  latest  time,  the  rewards  of  their  dangers  and 
their  toils.  Lafayette  had  watched,  and  labored,  arid  fought,  and  bled, 
not  for  himself,  not  for  his  family,  not,  in  the  first  instance,  even  for 
his  country.  In  the  legendary  tales  of  chivalry  we  read  of  tourna 
ments  at  which  a  foreign  and  unknown  knight  suddenly  presents 
himself,  armed  in  complete  steel,  and,  with  the  vizor  down,  enters  the 
ring  to  contend  with  the  assembled  flower  of  knighthood  for  the  prize 
of  honor,  to  be  awarded  by  the  hand  of  beauty  ;  bears  it  in  triumph 
away,  and  disappears  from  the  astonished  multitude  of  competitors 
and  spectators  of  the  feats  of  arms.  But  where,  in  the  rolls  of  history, 
where,  in  the  fictions  of  romance,  where,  but  in  the  life  of  Lafayette, 
has  been  seen  the  noble  stranger,  flying,  with  the  tribute  of  his  name, 
his  rank,  his  influence,  his  ease,  his  domestic  bliss,  his  treasure,  his 
blood,  to  the  relief  of  a  suffering  and  distant  land,  in  the  hour  of  her 
deepest  calamity — baring  his  bosom  to  her  foes;  and  not  at  the  trans 
ient  pageantry  of  a  tournament,  but  for  a  succession  of  five  years 
sharing  all  the  vicissitudes  of  her  fortunes;  always  eager  to  appear  at 
the  post  of  danger — tempering  the  glow  of  youthful  ardor  with  the 
cold  caution  of  a  veteran  commander  ;  bold  and  daring  in  action; 
prompt  in  execution;  rapid  in  pursuit;  fertile  in  expedients;  unattain 
able  in  retreat;  often  exposed,  but  never  surprised,  never  disconcerted; 
eluding  his  enemy  when  within  his  fancied  grasp;  bearing  upon  him 
with  irresistible  sway  when  of  force  to  cope  with  him  in  the  conflict  of 
arms  ?  And  what  is  this  but  the  diary  of  Lafayette,  from  the  day  of 
his  rallying  the  scattered  fugitives  of  the  Brandywine,  insensible 
of  the  blood  flowing  from  his  wound,  to  the  storming  of  the  redoubt 
at  Yorktown  ? 

Henceforth,  as  a  public  man,  Lafayette  is  to  be  considered  as  a 
Frenchman,  always  active  and  ardent  to  serve  the  United  States,  but 
no  longer  in  their  service  as  an  officer.  So  transcendent  had  been 
his  merits  in  the  common  cause,  that,  to  reward  them,  the  rule  of 
progressive  advancement  in  the  armies  of  France  was  set  aside  for 
him.  He  received  from  the  minister  of  war  a  notification  that  from 
the  day  of  his  retirement  from  the  service  of  the  United  States  as  a 


JOHN   QUINCY  ADAMS.  3° 7 

major  general,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  he  should  hold  the  same  rank 
in  the  armies  of  France,  to  date  from  the  day  of  the  capitulation  of 
Lord  Cornwallis. 

Henceforth  he  is  a  Frenchman,  destined  to  perform  in  the  history 
of  his  country  a  part,  as  peculiarly  his  own,  and  not  less  glorious  than 
that  which  he  had  performed  in  the  war  of  independence.  A  short 
period  of  profound  peace  followed  the  great  triumph  of  freedom.  The 
desire  of  Lafayette  once  more  to  see  the  land  of  his  adoption  and  the 
associates  of  his  glory,  the  fellow-soldiers  who  had  become  to  him  as 
brothers,  and  the  friend  and  patron  of  his  youth,  who  had  become  to 
him  as  a  father;  sympathizing  with  their  desire  once  more  to  see  him 
— to  see  in  their  prosperity  him  who  had  first  come  to  them  in  their 
affliction,  induced  him,  in  the  year  1784,  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  United 
States. 

On  the  4th  of  August,  of  that  year,  he  landed  at  New  York,  and,  in 
the  space  of  five  months  from  that  time,  visited  his  venerable  friend  at 
Mount  Vernon,  where  he  was  then  living  in  retirement,  and  traversed 
ten  States  of  the  Union,  receiving  every  where,  from  their  legislative 
assemblies,  from  the  municipal  bodies  of  the  cities  and  towns  through 
which  he  passed,  from  the  officers  of  the  army,  his  late  associates,  now 
restored  to  the  virtues  and  occupations  of  private  life,  and  even  from 
the  recent  emigrants  from  Ireland,  who  had  come  to  adopt  for  their 
country  the  self-emancipated  land,  addresses  of  gratulation  and  of  joy, 
the  effusions  of  hearts  grateful  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  blessings  for 
the  possessio-n  of  which  they  had  been  so  largely  indebted  to  his  ex 
ertions — and,  finally,  from  the  United  States  of  America  in  Congress 
assembled  at  Trenton. 

On  the  gth  of  December  it  was  resolved  by  that  body  that  a  com 
mittee,  to  consist  of  one  member  from  each  State,  should  be  appointed 
to  receive,  and  in  the  name  of  Congress  take  leave  of  the  marquis.  That 
they  should  be  instructed  to  assure  him  that  Congress  continued  to  en 
tertain  the  same  high  sense  of  his  abilities  and  zeal  to  promote  the  wel 
fare  of  America,  both  here  and  in  Europe,  which  they  had  frequently 
expressed  and  manifested  on  former  occasions,  and  which  the  recent 
marks  of  his  attention  to  their  commercial  and  other  interests  had 
perfectly  confirmed.  "That,  as  his  uniform  and  unceasing  attach 
ment  to  this  country  has  resembled  that  of  a  patriotic  citizen,  the 
United  States  regard  him  with  particular  affection,  and  will  not  cease 
to  feel  an  interest  in  whatever  may  concern  his  honor  and  prosperity, 
and  that  their  best  and  kindest  wishes  will  always  attend  him." 

And  it  was  further  resolved,  that  a  letter  be  written  to  his  Most 
Christian  Majesty,  to  be  signed  by  his  Excellency  the  President  of 
Congress,  expressive  of  the  high  sense  which  the  United  States  in 
Congress  assembled  entertain  of  the  zeal,  talents,  and  meritorious 
services  of  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  and  recommending  him  to  the 
favor  and  patronage  of  his  Majesty. 


AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

The  first  of  these  resolutions  was,  on  the  next  day,  carried  into  ex 
ecution.  At  a  solemn  interview  with  the  Committee  of  Congress, 
received  in  their  hall,  and  addressed  by  the  chairman  of  their  com 
mittee,  John  Jay,  the  purport  of  these  resolutions  was  communicated 
to  him.  He  replied  in  terms  of  fervent  sensibility  for  the  kindness 
manifested  personally  to  himself;  and,  with  allusions  to  the  situation, 
the  p:ospects,  and  the  duties  of  the  people  of  this  country,  he  pointed 
out  the  great  interests  which  he  believed  it  indispensable  to  their  wel 
fare,  that  they  should  cultivate  and  cherish.  In  the  following  mem 
orable  sentences  the  ultimate  objects  of  his  solicitude  are  disclosed  in 
a  tone  deeply  solemn  and  impressive  : 

"  May  this  immense  temple  of  freedom,"  said  he,  "ever  stand,  a 
lesson  to  oppressors,  an  example  to  the  oppressed,  a  sanctuary  for 
the  rights  of  mankind  !  and  may  these  happy  United  States  attain  that 
complete  splendor  and  prosperity  which  will  illustrate  the  blessings  of 
their  government,  and  for  ages  to  come  rejoice  the  departed  souls  of 
its  founders." 

Fellow-citizens  !  Ages  have  passed  away  since  these  words  were 
spoken ;  but  ages  are  the  years  of  the  existence  of  nations.  The  found 
ers  of  this  immense  temple  of  freedom  have  all  departed,  save  here 
and  there  a  solitary  exception,  even  while  I  speak,  at  the  point  of  tak 
ing  wing.  The  prayer  of  Lafayette  is  not  yet  consummated.  Ages 
upon  ages  are  still  to  pass  away  before  it  can  have  its  full  accomplish 
ment;  and,  for  its  ful1  accomplishment,  his  spirit,  hovering  over  our 
heads,  in  more  than  echoes  talks  around  these  walls.  It  repeats  the 
prayer  which  from  his  lips  fifty  years  ago  was  at  once  a  parting  bless 
ing  and  a  prophecy;  for,  were  it  possible  for  the  whole  human  race, 
now  breathing  the  breath  of  life,  to  be  assembled  within  this  hall,  your 
orator  would,  in  your  name  and  in  that  of  your  constituents,  appeal  to 
them  to  testify  for  your  fathers  of  the  last  generation,  that,  so  far  as 
has  depended  upon  them,  the  blessing  of  Lafayette  has  been  prophecy. 
Yes  '  this  immense  temple  of  freedom  still  stands,  a  lesson  to  op 
pressors,  an  example  to  the  oppressed,  and  a  sanctuary  for  the  rights 
of  mankind.  Yes  !  with  the  smiles  of  a  benignant  Providence,  the 
splendor  and  prosperity  of  these  happy  United  States  have  illustrated 
the  blessings  of  their  government,  and,  we  may  humbly  hope,  have 
rejoiced  the  departed  souls  of  its  founders.  For  the  past  your  fathers 
and  you  have  been  responsible.  The  charge  of  the  future  devolves 
upon  you  and  upon  your  children.  The  vestal  fire  of  freedom  is  in  your 
custody.  May  the  souls  of  its  departed  founders  never  be  called  to 
witness  its  extinction  by  neglect,  nor  a  soil  upon  the  purity  of  its 
keepers  ! 

With  this  valedictory,  Lafayette  took,  as  he  and  those  who  heard 
him  then  believed,  a  final  leave  of  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
He  returned  to  France  and  arrived  at  Paris  on  the  25111,01  January, 
1785- 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS.  3°9 

Such,  legislators  of  the  North  American  Confederate  Union,  was 
the  life  of  Gilbert  Motier  de  Lafayette,  and  the  record  of  his  life  is 
the  delineation  of  his  character.  Consider  him  as  one  human  being 
of  one  thousand  millions,  his  contemporaries  on  the  surface  of  the 
terraqueous  globe.  Among  that  thousand  millions  seek  for  an  object 
of  comparison  with  him;  assume  for  the  standard  of  comparison  all 
the  virtues  which  exalt  the  character  of  man  above  that  of  the  brute 
creation;  take  the  ideal  man,  little  lower  than  the  angels;  mark  the 
qualities  of  mind  and  heart  which  entitle  him  to  his  station  of . pre 
eminence  in  the  scale  of  created  beings,  and  inquire  who,  that  lived 
in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  com 
bined  in  himself  so  many  of  those  qualities,  so  little  alloyed  with 
those  which  belong  to  that  earthly  vesture  of  decay  in  which  the  im 
mortal  spirit  is  enclosed,  as  Lafayette. 

Pronounce  him  one  of  the  first  men  of  his  age,  and  you  have  yet 
not  done  him  justice.  Try  him  by  that  test  to  which  he  sought  in 
vain  to  stimulate  the  vulgar  and  selfish  spirit  of  Napoleon;  class  him 
among  the  men  who,  to  compare  and  seat  themselves,  must  take  in  the 
compass  of  all  ages;  turn  back  your  eyes  upon  the  records  of  time: 
summon  from  the  creation  of  the  world  to  this  day  the  mighty  dead 
of  every  age  and  every  clime — and  where,  among  the  race  of  merely 
mortal  men,  shall  one  be  found,  who,  as  the  benefactor  of  his  kind, 
shall  claim  to  take  precedence  of  Lafayette  ? 

There  have  doubtless  been,  in  all  ages,  men,  whose  discoveries  or 
inventions,  in  the  world  of  matter  or  of  mind,  have  opened  new 
avenues  to  the  dominion  of  man  over  the  material  creation;  have  in 
creased  his  means  or  his  faculties  of  enjoyment;  have  raised  him  in 
nearer  approximation  to  that  higher  and  happier  condition,  the  object 
of  his  hopes  and  aspirations  in  his  present  state  of  existence. 

Lafayette  discovered  no  new  principle  of  politics  or  of  morals.  He 
invented  nothing  in  science.  He  disclosed  no  new  phenomenon  in 
the  laws  of  nature.  Born  and  educated  in  the  highest  order  of  feudal 
nobility,  under  the  most  absolute  monarchy  of  Europe,  in  possession 
of  an  affluent  fortune,  and  master  of  himself  and  of  all  his  capabili 
ties,  at  the  moment  of  attaining  manhood,  the  principle  of  republicaa 
justice  and  of  social  equality  took  possession  of  his  heart  and  mind, 
as  if  by  inspiration  from  above.  He  devoted  himself,  his  life,  his 
fortune,  his  hereditary  honors,  his  towering  ambition,  his  splendid 
hopes,  all  to  the  cause  of  liberty.  He  came  to  another  hemisphere 
to  defend  her.  He  became  one  of  the  most  effective  champions  of 
our  independence;  but,  that  once  achieved,  he  returned  to  his  own 
country,  and  thenceforward  took  no  part  in  the  controversies  which 
have  divided  us.  In  the  events  of  our  revolution,  and  in  the  forms 
of  policy  which  we  have  adopted  for  the  establishment  and  perpetua 
tion  of  our  freedom,  Lafayette  found  the  most  perfect  form  of  govern 
ment.  He  wished  to  add  nothing  to  it.  He  would  gladly  have  ab- 


3*°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

stracted  nothing  from  it.  Instead  of  the  imaginary  Republic  ci 
Plato,  or  the  Utopia  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  he  took  a  practical  existing 
model,  in  actual  operation  here,  and  never  attempted  or  wished  more 
than  to  apply  it  faithfully  to  his  own  country. 

It  was  not  given  to  Moses  to  enter  the  promised  land;  but  he  saw 
it  from  the  summil  of  Pisgah.  It  was  not  given  to  Lafayette  to  wit 
ness  the  consummation  of  his  wishes  in  the  establishment  of  a  repub 
lic,  and  the  extinction  of  all  hereditary  rule  in  France.  His  principles 
were  in  advance  of  the  age  and  hemisphere  in  which  he  lived.  A  Bour 
bon  still  reigns  on  the  throne  of  France,  and  it  is  not  for  us  to  scruti 
nize  the  title  by  which  he  reigns.  The  principles  of  elective  and  hered 
itary  power,  blended  in  reluctant  union  in  his  person,  like  the  red  and 
white  roses  of  York  and  Lancaster,  may  postpone  to  aftertime  the  last 
conflict  to  which  they  must  ultimately  come.  The  life  of  the  patriarch 
was  not  long  enough  for  the  development  of  his  whole  political  sys 
tem.  Its  final  accomplishment  is  in  the  womb  of  time. 

The  anticipation  of  this  event  is  the  more  certain,  from  the  consid 
eration  that  all  the  principles  for  which  Lafayette  contended  were 
practical.  He  never  indulged  himself  in  wild  and  fanciful  specula 
tions.  The  principle  of  hereditary  power  was,  in  his  opinion,  the  bane 
of  all  republican  liberty  in  Europe.  Unable  to  extinguish  it  in  the 
Revolution  of  1830,  so  far  as  concerned  the  chief  magistracy  of  the 
nation,  Lafayette  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  it  abolished  with  ref 
erence  to  the  peerage.  An  hereditary  crown,  stript  of  the  support 
which  it  may  derive  from  an  hereditary  peerage,  however  compatible 
with  Asiatic  despotism,  is  an  anomaty  in  the  history  of  the  Christian 
world,  and  in  the  theory  of  free  government.  There  is  no  argument 
producible  against  the  existence  of  an  hereditary  peerage,  but  applies 
with  aggravated  weight  against  the  transmission,  from  sire  to  son,  of 
an  hereditary  crown.  The  prejudices  and  passions  of  the  people  of 
France  rejected  the  principle  of  inherited  power,  in  every  station  of 
public  trust,  excepting  the  first  and  highest  of  them  all;  but  there  they 
clung  to  it,  as  did  the  Israelites  of  old  to  the  savory  deities  of  Egypt. 

This  is  not  the  time  or  the  place  for  a  disquisition  upon  the  compar 
ative  merits,  as  a  system  of  government,  of  a  republic,  and  a  mon 
archy  surrounded  by  republican  institutions.  Upon  this  subject  there 
is  among  us  no  diversity  of  opinion;  and  if  it  should  take  the  people 
of  France  another  half  century  of  internal  and  external  war,  of  daz 
zling  and  delusive  glories;  of  unparalleled  triumphs,  humiliating  re 
verses,  and  bitter  disappointments,  to  settle  it  to  their  satisfaction,  the 
ultimate  result  can  only  bring  them  to  the  point  where  we  have  stood 
from  the  day  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence — to  the  point  where 
Lafayette  would  have  brought  them,  and  to  which  he  looked  as  a  con 
summation  devoutly  to  be  wished. 

Then,  too,  and  then  only,  will  be  the  time  when  the  character  of 
Lafayette  will  be  appreciated  at  its  true  value  throughout  the  civilized 


JOHN  qUINCY  ADAMS.  31. 

world.  When  the  principle  of  hereditary  dominion  shall  be  extin 
guished  in  all  the  institutions  of  France;  when  government  shall  no 
longer  be  considered  as  property  transmissible  from  sire  to  son,  but 
as  a  trust  committed  for  a  limited  time,  and  then  to  return  to  the  peo 
ple  whence  it  came;  as  a  burdensome  duty  to  be  discharged,  and  not 
as  a  reward  to  be  abused;  when  a  claim,  any  claim,  to  political  power 
by  inheritance  shall,  in  the  estimation  of  the  whole  French  people,  be 
held  as  it  now  is  by  the  whole  people  of  the  North  American  Union — 
then  will  be  the  time  for  contemplating  the  character  of  Lafayette,  not 
merely  in  the  events  of  his  life,  but,  in  the  full  development  of  his 
intellectual  conceptions,  of  his  fervent  aspirations,  of  the  labors  and 
perils  and  sacrifices  of  his  long  and  eventful  career  upon  earth;  and 
thenceforward,  till  the  hour  when  the  trump  of  the  Archangel  shall 
sound  to  announce  that  Time  shall  be  no  more,  the  name  of  Lafayette 
shall  stand  enrolled  upon  the  annals  of  our  race,  high  on  the  list  of 
the  pure  and  disinterested  benefactors  of  mankind. 


THE  JUBILEE  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION. 
JOHN   QUINCY   ADAMS. 

New  York,  April  30, 1839. 

FELLOW-CITIZENS  AND  BRETHREN,  ASSOCIATES  OF  THE  NEW  YORK 

HISTORICAL  SOCIETY  : 

Would  it  be  an  unlicensed  trespass  of  the  imagination  to  conceive, 
that  on  the  night  preceding  the  day  of  which  you  now  commemorate 
the  fiftieth  anniversary — on  ihe  night  preceding  that  thirtieth  of  April, 
one  thousand  seven  hundred  and  eighty-nine,  when  from  the  balcony 
of  your  city-hall,  the  Chancellor  of  the  State  of  New  York  adminis 
tered  to  George  Washington  the  solemn  oath,  faithfully  to  execute  the 
office  of  President  of  the  United  States,  and  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  to 
preserve,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States — 
that  in  the  visions  of  the  night,  the  guardian  angel  of  the  Father  of 
our  country  had  appeared  before  him,  in  the  venerated  form  of  his 
mother,  and,  to  cheer  and  encourage  him  in  the  performance  of  the 
momentous  and  solemn  duties  that  he  was  about  to  assume,  had  de 
livered  to  him  a  suit  of  celestial  armor — a  helmet,  consisting  of  the 
principles  of  piety,  of  justice,  of  honor,  of  benevolence,  with  which 
from  his  earliest  infancy  he  had  hitherto  walked  through  life,  in  the 
presence  of  all  his  brethen — a  spear,  studded  with  the  self-evident 
truths  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence — a  sword,  the  same  with 
which  he  had  led  the  armies  of  his  country  through  the  war  of  free 
dom,  to  the  summit  of  the  triumphal  arch  of  independence — a  corslet 
and  cuishes  of  long  experience  and  habitual  intercourse  in  peace  and 
A.  P.— n. 


312  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

war  with  the  world  of  mankind,  his  contemporaries  of  the  human  race, 
in  all  their  stages  of  civilization — and  last  of  all,  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  a  shield,  embossed  by  heavenly  hands,  with  the  fu 
ture  history  of  his  country. 

Yes,  gentlemen  !  on  that  shield,  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  sculptured  (by  forms  unseen,  and  in  characters  then  invis 
ible  to  mortal  eye),  the  predestined  and  prophetic  history  of  the  one 
confederated  people  of  the  North  American  Union. 

They  had  been  the  settlers  of  thirteen  separate  and  distinct  English 
colonies,  along  the  margin  of  the  shore  of  the  North  American  con 
tinent:  contiguously  situated,  but  chartered  by  adventurers  of  char 
acters  variously  diversified,  including  sectarians,  religious  and  politi 
cal,  of  all  the  classes  which  for  the  two  preceding  centuries  had 
agitated  and  divided  the  people  of  the  British  islands — and  with  them 
were  intermingled  the  descendants  of  Hollanders,  Swedes,  Germans, 
and  French  fugitives  from  the  persecution  of  the  revoker  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes. 

In  the  bosoms  of  this  people,  thus  heterogeneously  composed,  there 
was  burning,  kindled  at  different  furnaces,  but  all  furnaces  of  afflic 
tion,  one  clear,  steady  flame  of  liberty.  Bold  and  daring  enterprise, 
stubborn  endurance  of  privation,  unflinching  intrepidity  in  facing 
danger,  and  inflexible  adherence  to  conscientious  principle,  had  steeled 
to  energetic  and  unyielding  hardihood  the  characters  of  the  primitive 
settlers  of  all  these  colonies.  Since  that  time  two  or  three  generations 
of  men  had  passed  away — but  they  had  increased  and  multiplied  with 
unexampled  rapidity;  and  the  land  itself  had  been  the  recent  theatre 
of  a  ferocious  and  bloody  seven  years'  war  between  the  two  most  pow 
erful  and  most  civilized  nations  of  Europe,  contending  for  the  posses 
sion  of  this  continent. 

Of  that  strife  the  victorious  combatant  had  been  Britain.  She  had 
conquered  the  provinces  of  France.  She  had  expelled  her  rival  totally 
from  the  continent,  over  which,  bounding  herself  by  the  Mississippi. 
she  was  thenceforth  to  hold  divided  empire  only  with  Spain.  She  had 
acquired  undisputed  control  over  the  Indian  tribes,  still  tenanting  the 
forests  unexplored  by  the  European  man.  She  had  established  an 
uncontested  monopoly  of  the  commerce  of  all  her  colonies.  But  for 
getting  all  the  warnings  of  preceding  ages — forgetting  the  lessons 
written  in  the  blood  of  her  own  children,  through  centuries  of  de 
parted  time,  she  undertook  to  tax  the  people  of  the  colonies  without 
their  consent. 

Resistance,  instantaneous,  unconcerted,  sympathetic,  inflexible  re 
sistance,  like  an  electric  shock  startled  and  roused  the  people  of  all  the 
English  colonies  on  this  continent. 

This  was  the  first  signal  of  the  North  American  Union.  The  strug 
gle  was  for  chartered  rights — for  English  liberties — for  the  cause  of 
Algernon  Sydney  and  John  Hampden — for  trial  by  jury — the  Habeas 
Corpus  and  Magna  Charta. 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS.  3r3 

But  the  English  lawyers  had  decided  that  Parliament  was  omnipo 
tent — and  Parliament  in  their  omnipotence,  instead  of  trial  by  jury 
and  the  Habeas  Corpus,  enacted  admiralty  courts  in  England  to  try 
Americans  for  offences  charged  against  them  as  committed  in  Ameri 
ca — instead  of  the  privileges  of  Magna  Charta,  nullified  the  charter 
itself  of  Massachusetts  Bay;  shut  up  the  port  of  Boston;  sent  armies 
and  navies  to  keep  the  peace,  and  teach  the  colonies  that  John  Hamp- 
den  was  a  rebel,  and  -Algernon  Sidney  a  traitor. 

English  liberties  had  failed  them.  From  the  omnipotence  of  Par 
liament  the  colonists  appealed  to  the  rights  of  man  and  the  omnipo 
tence  of  the  God  of  battles.  Union  !  Union  !  was  the  instinctive  and 
simultaneous  cry  throughout  the  land.  Their  Congress,  assembled  at 
Philadelphia,  once — twice  had  petitioned  the  king;  had  remonstrated 
to  Parliament;  had  addressed  the  people  of  Britain,  for  the  rights  of 
Englishmen — in  vain.  Fleets  and  armies,  the  blood  of  Lexington, 
and  the  fires  of  Charlestown  and  Falmouth,  had  been  the  answer  to 
petition,  remonstrance,  and  address. 

Independence  was  declared.  The  colonies  were  transformed  into 
States.  Their  inhabitants  were  proclaimed  to  be  one  people,  renounc 
ing  all  allegiance  to  the  British  crown;  all  co-patriotism  with  the  Brit 
ish  nation;  all  claims  to  chartered  rights  as  Englishmen.  Thenceforth 
their  charter  was  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Their  rights,  the 
natural  rights  of  mankind.  Their  government,  such  as  should  be  in 
stituted  by  themselves,  under  the  solemn  mutual  pledges  of  per 
petual  union,  founded  on  the  self-evident  truths  proclaimed  in  the 
Declaration. 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  was  issued,  in  the  excruciating 
agonies  of  a  civil  war,  and  by  that  war  independence  was  to  be  main 
tained  Six  long  years  it  raged  with  unabated  fury,  and  the  Union 
was  yet  no  more  than  a  mutual  pledge  of  faith,  and  a  mutual  partici 
pation  of  common  sufferings  and  common  dangers. 

The  omnipotence  of  the  British  Parliament  was  vanquished.  The 
independence  of  the  United  States  of  America  was  not  granted,  but 
recognized.  The  nation  had  "assumed  among  the  powers  of  the 
earth,  the  separate  and  equal  station,  to  which  the  laws  of  nature,  and 
of  nature's  God,  entitled  it" — but  the  one,  united  people,  had  yet  no 
government. 

In  the  enthusiasm  of  their  first  spontaneous,  unstipulated,  unpre 
meditated  union,  they  had  flattered  themselves  that  no  general  gov 
ernment  would  be  required.  As  separate  states  they  were  all  agreed 
that  they  should  constitute  and  govern  themselves.  The  revolution 
under  which  they  were  gasping  for  life,  the  war  which  was  carrying 
desolation  into  all  their  dwellings,  and  mourning  into  every  family, 
had  been  kindled  by  the  abuse  of  power — the  power  of  government. 
An  invincible  repugnance  to  the  delegation  of  power,  had  thus  been 
generated,  by  the  very  course  of  events  which  had  rendered  it  neces 
sary;  and  the  more  indispensable  it  became,  the  more  awakened  was 


3^4  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

the  jealousy  and  the  more  intense  was  the  distrust  by  which  it  was  to 
be  circumscribed. 

They  relaxed  their  union  into  a  league  of  friendship  between  sover 
eign  and  independent  states.  They  constituted  a  Congress,  with 
powers  co-extensive  with  the  nation,  but  so  hedged  and  hemmed  in 
with  restrictions,  that  the  limitation  seemed  to  be  the  general  rule,  and 
the  grant  the  occasional  exception.  The  articles  of  confederation, 
subjected  to  philosophical  analysis,  seem  to  be^  little  more  than  an 
enumeration  of  the  functions  of  a  national  government  which  the 
Congress  constituted  by  the  instrument  was  not  authorized  to  perform. 
There  was  avowedly  no  executive  power. 

The  nation  fell  into  an  atrophy.  The  Union  languished  to  the  point 
of  death.  A  torpid  numbness  seized  upon  all  its  faculties.  A  chilling 
cold  indifference  crept  from  its  extremities  to  the  centre.  The  system 
was  about  to  dissolve  in  its  own  imbecility — impotence  in  negotiation 
abroad — domestic  insurrection  at  home,  were  on  the  point  of  bearing 
to  a  dishonourable  grave  the  proclamation  of  a  government  founded 
on  the  rights  of  man,  when  a  convention  of  delegates  from  eleven  of 
the  thirteen  states,  with  George  Washington  at  their  head,  sent  forth 
to  the  people,  an  act  to  be  made  their  own,  speaking  in  their  name 
and  in  the  first  person,  thus  :  "  We  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
in  order  to  form  a  more  perfect  union,  establish  justice,  ensure  domes 
tic  tranquillity,  provide  for  the  common  defence,  promote  the  general 
welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  pos 
terity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  Constitution  for  the  United  States 
of  America." 

This  act  was  the  complement  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence  ; 
founded  upon  the  same  principles,  carrying  them  out  into  practical 
execution,  and  forming  with  it  one  entire  system  of  national  govern 
ment.  The  Declaration  was  a  manifesto  to  the  world  of  mankind,  to 
justify  the  one  confederated  people,  for  the  violent  and  voluntary  se 
verance  of  the  ties  of  their  allegiance,  for  the  renunciation  of  their 
country,  and  for  assuming  a  station  themselves,  among  the  potentates 
of  the  world — a  self-constituted  sovereign — a  self-constituted  couatry. 

In  the  history  of  the  human  race  this  had  never  been  done  before. 
Monarchs  had  been  dethroned  for  tyranny — kingdoms  converted  into 
republics,  and  revolted  provinces  had  assumed  the  attributes  of  sove 
reign  power.  In  the  history  of  England  itself,  within  one  century  and 
a  half  before  the  day  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  one  lawful 
king  had  been  brought  to  the  block,  and  another  expelled,  with  all  his 
posterity,  from  his  own  kingdom,  and  a  collateral  dynasty  had  ascend 
ed  his  throne.  But  the  former  of  these  revolutions  had  by  the  delibe 
rate  and  final  sentence  of  the  nation  itself,  been  pronounced  a  rebel 
lion,  and  the  rightful  heir  of  the  executed  king  had  been  restored  to 
the  crown.  In  the  latter,  at  the  first  onset,  the  royal  recreant  had 
fled — he  was  held  to  have  abdicated  the  crown,  and  it  was  placed  upon 


JOILV  QUINCY  ADAMS.  3J5 

the  heads  of  his  daughter  and  of  her  husband,  the  prime  leader  of  the 
conspiracy  against  him.  In  these  events  there  had  been  much  contro 
versy  upon  the  platform  of  English  liberties — upon  the  customs  of 
the  ancient  Britons;  the  laws  of  Alfred,  the  Witenagamote  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons,  and  the  Great  Charter  of  Runnymede  with  all  its  num 
berless  confirmations.  But  the  actors  of  those  times  had  never 
ascended  to  the  first  foundation  of  civil  society  among  men,  nor  had 
any  revolutionary  system  of  government  been  rested  upon  them. 

The  motive  for  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  on  its  face 
avowed  to  be  "  a  decent  respect  for  the  opinions  of  mankind."  Its 
purpose  to  declare  the  causes  which  impelled  the  people  of  the  English 
Colonies  on  the  continent  of  North  America,  to  separate  themselves 
from  the  political  community  of  the  British  nation.  They  declare  only 
the  causes  of  their  separation,  but  they  announce  at  the  same  time 
their  assumption  of  the  separate  and  equal  station  to  which  the  laws 
of  nature  and  of  nature's  God  entitle  them,  among  the  powers  of  the 
earth. 

Thus  their  first  movement  is  to  recognise  and  appeal  to  the  laws  of 
nature  and  to  nature's  God,  for  their  right  to  assume  the  attributes  of 
sovereign  power  as  an  independent  nation. 

The  causes  of  their  necessary  separation,  for  they  begin  and  end  by 
declaring  it  necessary,  alleged  in  the  Declaration,  are  all  founded  on 
the  same  laws  of  nature  and  of  nature's  God — and  hfrnce  as  prelimi 
nary  to  the  enumeration  of  the  causes  of  separation,  they  set  forth  as 
self-evident  truths,  the  rights  of  individual  man,  by  the  laws  of  nature 
and  of  nature's  God,  to  life,  to  liberty,  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 
That  all  men  are  created  equal.  That  to  secure  the  rights  of  life,  lib 
erty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  governments  are  instituted  among 
men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed. 
All  this  is  by  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  nature's  God,  and  of  course  pre 
supposes  the  existence  of  a  God,  the  moral  ruler  of  the  universe,  and 
a  rule  of  right  and  wrong,  of  just  and  unjust,  binding  upon  man,  pre 
ceding  all  institutions  of  human  society  and  of  government.  It  avers, 
also,  that  governments  are  instituted  to  secure  these  rights  of  nature 
and  of  nature's  God,  and  that  whenever  any  form  of  government  be 
comes  destructive  of  those  ends,  it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to 
alter,  or  to  abolish  it,  and  to  institute  a  new  government — to  throw 
off  a  government  degenerating  into  despotism,  and  to  provide  new 
guards  for  their  future  security.  They  proceed  then  to  say  that  such 
was  then  the  situation  of  the  colonies,  and  such  the  necessity  which 
constrained  them  to  alter  their  former  systems  of  government. 

Then  follows  the  enumeration  of  the  acts  of  tyranny  by  which  the 
king,  parliament,  and  people  of  Great  Britain,  ha'd  perverted  the  pow 
ers  to  the  destruction  of  the  ends  of  government,  over  the  colonies, 
and  the  consequent  necessity  constraining  the  colonies  to  the  separa 
tion. 


3l6  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

In  conclusion,  the  Representatives  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
in  general  Congress  assembled,  appealing  to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the 
world  for  the  rectitude  of  their  intentions,  do,  in  the  name  and  by  the 
authority  of  the  good  people  of  these  Colonies,  solemnly  publish  and 
declare  that  these  United  Colonies,  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  free 
and  independent  states;  that  they  are  absolved  from  all  allegiance  to 
the  British  crown  ;  and  that  all  political  connexion  between  them 
and  the  state  of  Great  Britain,  is,  and  ought  to  be  totally  dissolved  ; 
and  that  as  free  and  independent  states,  they  have  full  power  to  levy 
war,  conclude  peace,  contract  alliances,  establish  commerce,  and  to  do 
all  other  acts  and  things  which  independent  states  may  of  right  do. 
The  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the  world,  and  the  rule  of  right 
and  wrong  as  paramount  events  to  the  power  of  independent  states, 
are  here  again  repeated  in  the  very  act  of  constituting  a  new  sovereign 
community. 

It  is  not  immaterial  to  remark,  that  the  signers  of  the  Declaration, 
though  qualifying  themselves  as  the  Representatives  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  in  general  Congress  assembled,  yet  issue  the  De 
claration,  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  good  people  of  the 
colonies — and  that  they  declare,  not  each  of  the  separate  colonies,  but 
the  United  Colonies,  free  and  independent  states.  The  whole  people 
declared  the  colonies  in  their  united  condition,  of  right,  free  and 
independent  stales. 

The  dissolution  of  allegiance  to  the  British  crown,  the  severance  of 
the  colonies  from  the  British  empire,  and  their  actual  existence  as 
Independent  States,  thus  declared  of  right,  were  definitively  established 
in  fact,  by  war  and  peace.  The  independence  of  each  separate  state 
had  never  been  declared  of  right.  It  never  existed  in  fact.  Upon  the 
principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  dissolution  of  the 
ties  of  allegiance,  the  assumption  of  sovereign  power,  and  the  institu 
tion  of  civil  government,  are  all  acts  of  transcendant  authority,  which 
the  people  alone  are  competent  to  perform — and  accordingly,  it  is  in 
the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  people,  that  two  of  these  acts — the 
dissolution  of  allegiance,  with  the  severance  from  the  British  empire, 
and  the  declaration  of  the  United  Colonies,  as  free  and  independent 
states,  were  performed  by  that  instrument. 

But  there  still  remained  the  last  and  crowning  act,  which  the  people 
of  the  Union  alone  were  competent  to  perform — the  institution  of  civil 
government,  for  that  compound  nation,  the  United  States  of  America. 

At  this  day  it  cannot  but  strike  us  as  extraordinary,  that  is  does  not 
appear  to  have  occurred  to  any  one  member  of  that  assembly,  which 
had  laid  down  in  terms  so  clear,  so  explicit,  so  unequivocal,  the  foun 
dation  of  all  just  government,  in  the  imprescriptable  rights  of  man, 
and  the  transcendant  sovereignty  of  the  people,  and  who  in  those 
principles,  had  set  forth  their  only  personal  vindication  from  the 
charges  of  rebellion  against  their  king,  and  of  treason  to  their  country, 


JOHN   QUINCY  ADAMS.  317 

that  their  last  crowning  act  was  still  to  be  performed  upon  the  same 
principles.  That  is,  the  institution,  by  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
of  a  civil  government,  to  guard  and  protect  and  defend  them  all.  On 
the  contrary,  that  same  assembly  which  issued  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  instead  of  continuing  to  act  in  the  name,  and  by  the  authority 
of  the  good  people  of  the  United  States,  had  immediately  after  the  ap 
pointment  of  the  committee  to  prepare  the  Declaration,  appointed 
another  committee,  of  one  member  from  each  colony,  to  prepare  and  di 
gest  the  form  of  confederation,  to  be  entered  into  between  the  colonies. 

That  committee  reported  on  the  I2th  of  July,  eight  days  after  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  had  been  issued,  a  draught  of  articles  of 
confederation  between  the  colonies.  This  draught  was  prepared  by 
John  Dickinson,  then  a  delegate  from  Pennsylvania,  who  voted 
against  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  naver  signed  it — having 
been  superseded  by  a  new  election  of  delegates  from  that  State,  eight 
days  after  his  draught  was  reported. 

There  was  thus  no  congeniality  of  principle  between  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  and  the  articles  of  confederation.  The  foundation 
of  the  former  were  a  superintending  Providence — the  rights  of  man, 
and  the  constituent  revolutionary  power  of  the  people.  That  of  the 
latter  was  the  sovereignty  of  organized  power,  and  the  independence 
of  the  separate  or  dis-united  States.  The  fabric  of  the  Declaration 
and  that  of  the  Confederation,  were  each  consistent  with  its  own 
foundation,  but  they  could  not  form  one  consistent  symmetrical 
edifice.  They  were  the  productions  of  different  minds  and  of  adverse 
passions — one,  ascending  for  the  foundation  of  human  government  to 
the  laws  of  nature  and  of  God,  written  upon  the  heart  of  man — the 
other,  resting  upon  the  basis  of  human  institutions,  and  prescriptive 
law  and  colonial  charter.  The  corner  stone  of  the  one  was  right — 
that  of  the  other  was  power. 

The  work  of  the  founders  of  our  independence  was  thus  but  half 
done.  Absorbed  in  that  more  than  herculean  task  of  maintaining 
that  independence  and  its  principles,  by  one  of  the  most  cruel  wars 
that  ever  glutted  the  furies  with  human  woe,  they  marched  undaunted 
and  steadfast  through  that  fiery  ordeal,  and  consistent  in  their  prin 
ciples  to  the  end,  concluded,  as  an  acknowledged  sovereignty  of  the 
United  States,  proclaimed  by  their  people  in  1776,  a  peace  with  that 
same  monarch,  whose  sovereignty  over  them  they  had  abjured  in 
obedience  to  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  nature's  God. 

But  for  these  United  States,  they  had  formed  no  constitution. 
Instead  of  resorting  to  the  source  of  all  constituted  power,  they  had 
wasted  their  time,  their  talents,  and  their  persevering,  untiring  toils, 
in  erecting  and  roofing  and  buttressing  a  frail  and  temporary  shed  to 
shelter  the  nation  from  the  storm,  or  rather  a  mere  baseless  scaffold 
ing  on  which  to  stand,  when  they  should  raise  the  marble  palace  of 
the  people,  to  stand  the  test  of  time. 


3l8  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

. 

Five  years  were  consumed  by  Congress  and  the  State  Legislatures, 
In  debating  and  altercating  and  adjusting  these  Articles  ot  Confedera 
tion.  The  first  of  which  was  : — 

"  Each  State  retains  its  sovereignty,  freedom  and  independence, 
and  every  power,  jurisdiction,  and  right,  which  is  not  by  this  con 
federation  expressly  delegated  to  the  United  States  in  Congress 
assembled." 

Observe  the  departure  from  the  language,  and  the  consequent  con 
trast  of  principles,  with  those  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Each  state  retains  its  sovereignty,  &c. — where  did  each  state  get 
the  sovereignty  which  it  retains?  In  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence  the  delegaties  of  the  colonies  in  Congress  assembled,  in  the 
name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  good  people  of  the  colonies, 
declare,  not  each  colony,  but  the  United  Colonies,  in  fact,  and  of 
right,  not  sovereign,  but  free  and  independent  states.  And  why  did 
they  make  this  declaration  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the 
one  people  of  all  the  colonies  ?  Because  by  the  principles  before 
laid  down  in  the  Declaration,  the  people,  and  the  people  alone,  as  the 
rightful  source  of  all  legitimate  government,  were  competent  to  dis 
solve  the  bands  of  subjection  of  all  the  colonies  to  the  nation  of 
Great  Britain,  and  to  constitute  them  free  and  independent  states. 
Now  the  people  of  the  colonies,  speaking  by  their  delegates  in  Con 
gress,  had  not  declared  each  colony  a  sovereign,  free  and  indepen 
dent  state — nor  had  the  people  of  each  colony  so  declared  the 
colony  itself,  nor  could  they  so  declare  it,  because  each  was  already 
bound  in  union  with  all  the  rest;  a  union  formed  de  facto,  by  the 
spontaneous  revolutionary  movement  of  the  whole  people,  and  organ 
ized  by  the  meeting  of  the  first  Congress,  in  1774,  a  year  and  ten 
months  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Where,  then,  did  each  state  get  the  sovereignty,  freedom  and 
independence,  which  the  articles  of  confederation  declare  it  retains  ? — 
not  from  the  whole  people  of  the  whole  Union — not  from  the  Declar 
ation  of  Independence — not  from  the  people  of  the  state  itself.  It 
was  assumed  by  agreement  between  the  Legislatures  of  the  several 
states,  and  their  delegates  in  Congress,  without  authority  from  or 
consultation  of  the  people  at  all. 

In  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  enacting  and  constituent 
party  dispensing  and  delegating  sovereign  power,  is  the  whole  people 
of  the  United  Colonies.  The  recipient  party,  invested  with  power,  is 
the  United  Colonies,  declared  United  States. 

In  the  articles  of  confederation,  this  order  of  agency  is  inverted. 
Each  state  is  the  constituent  and  enacting  party  and  the  United  States 
in  Congress  assembled,  the  recipient  of  delegated  power — and  that 
power,  delegated  with  such  a  penurious  and  carking  hand,  that  it  had 
more  the  aspect  of  a  revocation  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
than  an  instrument  to  carry  it  into  effect. 


JOHN  QUIXCY  ADAMS.  3' 9 

None  of  these  indispensably  necessary  powers  were  ever  conferred  by 
the  state  legislatures  upon  the  Congress  of  the  confederation  ;  and  well 
was  it  that  they  never  were.  The  system  itself  was  radically  defective. 
Its  incurable  disease  was  an  apostacy  from  the  principles  of  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence.  A  substitution  of  separate  state  sovereignties, 
in  the  place  of  the  constituent  sovereignty  of  the  people,  as  the  basis  of 
the  confederate  Union. 

In  the  Congress  of  the  confederation,  the  master  minds  of  James 
Madison  and  Alexander  Hamilton,  were  constantly  engaged  through  the 
closing  years  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  those  of  peace  which  im 
mediately  succeeded.  That  of  John  Jay  was  associated  with  them 
shortly  after  the  peace,  in  the  capacity  of  Secretary  to  the  Congress  for 
Foreign  Affairs.  The  incompetency  of  the  articles  of  confederation  for 
the  management  of  the  affairs  of  the  Union  at  home  and  abroad,  was 
demonstrated  to  them  by  the  painful  and  mortifying  experience  of  every 
day.  Washington,  though  in  retirement,  was  brooding  over  the  cruel 
injustice  suffered  by  his  associates  in  arms,  the  warriors  of  the  Revolu 
tion  ;  over  the  prostration  of  the  public  credit  and  the  faith  of  the  na 
tion,  in  the  neglect  to  provide  for  the  payment  even  of  the  interest 
upon  the  public  debt  ;  over  the  disappointed  hopes  of  the  friends  of 
freedom  ;  in  the  language  of  the  address  from  Congress  to  the  states  of 
the  iSth  of  April,  1783 — "the  pride  and  boast  of  America,  that  the 
rights  for  which  she  contended  were  the  rights  of  human  nature." 

At  his  residence  of  Mount  Vernon,  in  March,  1785,  the  first  idea  was 
started  of  a  revisal  of  the  articles  of  confederation,  by  an  organization, 
of  means  differing  from  that  of  a  compact  between  the  state  legis 
latures  and  their  own  delegates  in  Congress.  A  convention  of  delegates 
from  the  state  legislatures,  independent  of  the  Congress  itself,  was  the 
expedient  which  presented  itself  for  effecting  the  purpose,  and  an 
augmentation  of  the  powers  of  Congress  for  the  regulation  of  com 
merce,  as  the  object  for  which  this  assembly  was  to  be  convened.  In 
January,  1786,  the  proposal  was  made  and  adopted  in  the  Legislature 
of  Virginia,  and  communicated  to  the  other  state  legislatures. 

The  convention  was  held  at  Annapolis,  in  September  of  that  year. 
It  was  attended  by  delegates  from  only  five  of  the  central  states;  who  on 
comparing  their  restricted  powers  with  the  glaring  and  universally  ac 
knowledged  defects  of  the  confederation,  reported  only  a  recommenda 
tion  for  the  assemblage  of  another  convention  of  delegates  to  meet  at 
Philadelphia,  in  May,  1787,  from  all  the  states  and  with  enlarged  powers. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  the  work  of  this  conven 
tion.  But  in  its  construction  the  convention  immediately  perceived 
that  they  must  retrace  their  steps,  and  fall  back  from  a  league  of 
friendship  betwen  sovereign  states,  to  the  constituent  sovereignty 
of  the  people ;  from  power  'to  right — from  the  irresponsible  despotism 
of  state  sovereignty,  to  the  self-evident  truths  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  In  that  instrument,  the  right  to  institute  and  to  alter 


320  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

governments  among  men  was  ascribed  exclusively  to  the  people — 
the  ends  of  government  were  declared  to  be  to  secure  the  natural 
rights  of  man  ;  and  that  when  the  government  degenerates  from  the 
promotion  to  the  destruction  of  that  end,  the  right  and  the  duty  ac 
crues  to  the  people  to  dissolve  this  degenerate  government  and  to  in 
stitute  another.  The  signers  of  the  Declaration  further  averred,  that 
the  one  people  of  the  United  Colonies  were  then  precisely  in  that 
situation — with  a  government  degenerated  into  tyranny,  and  called 
upon  by  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  nature's  God,  to  dissolve  that  gov 
ernment  and  to  institute  another.  Then  in  the  name  and  by  the 
authority  of  the  good  people  of  the  colonies,  they  pronounced  the  dis 
solution  of  their  allegiance  to  the  king,  and  their  eternal  separation 
from  the  nation  of  Great  Britain — and  declared  the  United  Colonies  in 
dependent  states.  And  here  as  the  representatives  of  the  one  people 
they  had  stopped.  They  did  not  require  the  confirmation  of  this  act, 
for  the  power  to  make  the  declaration  had  already  been  conferred  upon 
them  by  the  people  ;  delegating  the  power,  indeed,  separately  in  the 
separate  colonies,  not  by  colonial  authority,  but  by  the  spontaneous 
revolutionary  movement  of  the  people  in  them  all. 

From  the  day  of  that  declaration,  the  constituent  power  of  the  people 
had  never  been  called  into  action.  A  confederacy  had  been  substituted 
in  the  place  of  a  government ;  and  state  sovereignty  had  usurped  the 
constituent  sovereignty  of  the  people. 

The  convention  assembled  at  Philadelphia  had  themselves  no  di 
rect  authority  from  the  people.  Their  authority  was  all  derived  from 
the  state  legislatures.  But  they  had  the  articles  of  confederation 
before  them,  and  they  saw  and  felt  the  wretched  condition  into  which 
they  had  brought  the  whole  people,  and  that  the  Union  itself  was  in  the 
agonies  of  death.  They  soon  perceived  that  the  indispensably  needed 
powers  were  such  as  no  state  government,  no  combination  of  them, 
was  by  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  competent 
to  bestow.  They  could  emanate  only  from  the  people.  A  highly 
respectable  portion  of  the  assembly,  still  clinging  to  the  confederacy 
of  states,  proposed  as  a  substitute  for  the  Constitution,  a  mere  revival 
of  the  articles  of  confederation,  with  a  grant  of  additional  powers  to 
the  Congress.  Their  plan  was  respectfully  and  thoroughly  discussed,  , 
but  the  want  of  a  government  and  of  the  sanction  of  the  people  to' 
the  delegation  of  powers,  happily  prevailed.  A  constitution  for  the 
people,  and  the  distribution  of  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial 
powers,  was  prepared.  It  announced  itself  as  the  work  of  the  people 
themselves;  and  as  this  was  unquestionably  a  power  assumed  by  the 
convention,  not  delegated  to  them  by  the  people,  they  religiously  con 
fined  it  to  a  simple  power  to  propose,  and  carefully  provided  that  it 
should  be  no  more  than  a  proposal  until  sanctioned  by  the  confedera 
tion  Congress,  by  the  state  legislatures,  and  by  the  people  of  the 
several  states,  in  conventions  specially  assembled,  by  authority  of 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS.  321 

their  legislatures,  for  the  single  purpose  of  examining  and  passing 
upon  it. 

And  thus  was  consummated  the  work,  commenced  by  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence.  A  work  in  which  the  people  of  the  North 
American  Union,  acting  under  the  deepest  sense  of  responsibility  to 
the  Supreme  Ruler  of  the  universe,  had  achieved  the  most  transcend 
ent  act  of  power,  that  social  man  in  his  mortal  condition  can  perform. 
Even  that  of  dissolving  the  ties  of  allegiance  by  which  he  is  bound  to 
his  country — of  renouncing  that  country  itself — of  demolishing  its 
government,  of  instituting  another  government,  and  of  making  for 
himself  another  country  in  its  stead. 

And  on  that  day,  of  which  you  now  commemorate  the  fiftieth  anni 
versary — on  that  3Oth  day  of  April,  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
eighty-nine,  was  this  mighty  revolution,  not  only  in  the  affairs  of  our 
own  country,  but  in  the  principles  of  government  over  civilized  man, 
accomplished. 

The  revolution  itself  was  a  work  of  thirteen  years — and  had  never 
been  completed  until  that  day.  The  declaration  of  Independence 
and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  are  parts  of  one  consistent 
whole,  founded  upon  one  and  the  same  theory  of  government,  then 
new,  not  as  a  theory,  for  it  had  been  working  itself  into  the  mind  of 
man  for  many  ages,  and  been  especially  expounded  in  the  writings 
of  Locke,  but  had  never  before  been  adopted  by  a  great  nation  in 
practice. 

There  are  yet,  even  at  this  day,  many  speculative  objections  to  this 
theory.  Even  in  our  own  country,  there  are  still  philosophers  who 
deny  the  principles  asserted  in  the  declaration,  as  self-evident  truths 
— who  deny  the  natural  equality  and  inalienable  rights  of  man — who 
deny  that  the  people  are  the  only  legitimate  source  of  power — who 
deny  that  all  just  powers  of  government  are  derived  from  the  consent 
of  the  governed.  Neither  your  time,  nor  perhaps  the  cheerful  nature 
of  this  occasion,  permit  me  here  to  enter  upon  the  examination  of  this 
anti-revolutionary  theory,  which  arrays  state  sovereignty  against  the 
constituent  sovereignty  of  the  people,  and  distorts  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  into  a  league  of  friendship  between  confederate  cor 
porations.  I  speak  to  matters  of  fact.  There  is  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  there  is  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States — let 
them  speak  for  themselves.  The  grossly  immoral  and  dishonest  doc 
trine  of  despotic  state  sovereignty,  the  exclusive  judge  of  its  own 
obligations,  and  responsible  to  no  power  on  earth  or  in  heaven,  for 
the  violation  of  them,  is  not  there.  The  Declaration  says  it  is  not  in 
me.  The  Constitution  says  it  is  not  in  me. 


322  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 


COMPLETION  OF  BUNKER   HILL  MONUMENT. 
DANIEL   WEBSTER. 

Ckarlestovun,  June  17,  1843. 

A  duty  has  been  performed.  A  work  of  gratitude  and  patriotism  is 
completed.  This  structure,  having  its  foundations  in  soil,  which  drank 
deep  of  early  revolutionary  blood,  has  at  length  reached  its  destined 
height,  and  now  lifts  its  summit  to  the  skies. 

We  have  assembled  to  celebrate  the  accomplishment  of  this  under 
taking,  and  to  indulge,  afresh,  in  the  recollection  of  the  great  event, 
which  it  is  designed  to  commemorate.  Eighteen  years,  more  than  half 
the  ordinary  duration  of  a  generation  of  mankind,  have  elapsed  since 
the  corner  stone  of  this  monument  was  laid.  The  hopes  of  its  pro 
jectors  rested  on  voluntary  contributions,  private  munificence,  and  the 
general  favor  of  the  public.  These  hopes  have  not  been  disappointed. 
Donations  have  been  made  by  individuals,  in  some  cases  of  large 
amount,  and  smaller  sums  contributed  by  thousands.  All  who  regard 
the  object  itself  as  important,  and  its  accomplishment,  therefore,  as  a 
good  attained,  will  entertain  sincere  respect  and  gratitude  for  the  un 
wearied  efforts  of  the  successive  Presidents,  Boards  of  Directors,  and 
Committees  of  the  Association,  which  has  had  the  general  control  of 
the  work.  The  architect,  equally  entitled  to  our  thanks  and  commen 
dation,  will  find  other  reward,  also,  for  his  labor  and  skill,  in  the 
beauty  and  elegance  of  the  obelisk  itself,  and  the  distinction  which,  as 
a  work  of  art,  it  confers  on  him. 

At  a  period  when  the  prospects  of  further  progress  in  the  under 
taking  were  gloomy  and  discouraging,  the  Mechanic  Association,  by  a 
most  praiseworthy  and  vigorous  effort,  raised  new  funds  for  carrying 
it  forward,  and  saw  them  applied  with  fidelity,  economy  and  skill.  It 
is  a  grateful  duty  to  make  public  acknowledgments  of  such  timely  and 
efficient  aid. 

The  last  effort,  and  the  last  contribution,  were  from  a  different 
source.  Garlands  of  grace  and  elegance  were  destined  to  crown  a 
work,  which  had  its  commencement  in  manly  patriotism.  The  win 
ning  power  of  the  sex  addressed  itself  to  the  public,  and  all  that  was 
needed  to  carry  the  monument  to  its  proposed  height,  and  give  to  it  its 
finish,  was  promptly  supplied.  The  mothers  and  the  daughters  of  the  . 
land  contributed  thus,  most  successfully  to  whatever  of  beauty  is  in  the 
obelisk  itself,  or  whatever  of  utility  and  public  benefit  and  gratification 
in  its  completion. 

Of  those,  with  whom  the  plan  of  erecting  on  this  spot  a  monument, 
worthy  of  the  event  to  be  commemorated,  orginated,  many  are  now 
present;  but  others,  alas  !  have  themselves  become  subjects  of  mon- 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  323 

umental  inscription.  William  Tudor,  an  accomplished  scholar,  a  dis 
tinguished  writer,  a  most  amiable  man,  allied,  both  by  birth  and  sen 
timent,  to  the  patriots  of  the  revolution,  died,  while  on  public  service 
abroad,  and  now  lies  buried  in  a  foreign  land.  William  Sullivan,  a 
name  fragrant  of  revolutionary  merit,  and  of  public  service  and 
public  virtue,  who  himself  partook,  in  a  high  degree,  of  the  respect 
and  confidence  of  the  community,  and  yet  was  always  most  loved 
where  best  known,  has  also  been  gathered  to  his  fathers.  And  last, 
George  Blake,  a  lawyer  of  learning  and  eloquence,  a  man  of  wit  and. 
of  talent,  of  social  qualities  the  most  agreeable  and  fascinating,  and 
of  gifts  which  enabled  him  to  exercise  large  sway  over  public  assem 
blies,  has  closed  his  human  career.  I  know  that  in  the  crowds  before 
me,  there  are  those,  from  whose  eyes  copious  tears  will  flow,  at  the 
mention  of  these  names.  But  such  mention  is  due  to  their  general 
character,  their  public  and  private  virtues,  and  especially  on  this  occa 
sion,  to  the  spirit  and  zeal  with  which  they  entered  into  the  under 
taking,  which  is  now  completed. 

I  have  spoken  only  of  those  who  are  not  now  numbered  with  the 
living.  But  a  long  life,  now  drawing  towards  its  close,  always  distin 
guished  by  acts  of  public  spirit,  humanity,  and  char'cy,  forming  a 
character,  which  has  already  become  historical,  and  sanctified  by 
public  regard,  and  by  the  affection  of  friends,  may  confer,  even  on  the 
living,  the  proper  immunity  of  the  dead,  and  be  the  lit  subject  of  hon 
orable  mention,  and  warm  commendation.  Of  the  early  projectors  of 
the  design  of  this  monument,  one  of  the  most  prominent,  the  most 
zealous  and  the  most  efficient,  is  Thomas  H.  Perkins.  It  was  beneath 
his  ever  hospitable  roof  that  those  whom  I  have  mentioned,  and  others 
yet  living  and  now  present,  having  assembled  for  the  purpose,  adopted 
the  first  step  towards  erecting  a  monument  on  Bunker  Hill.  Long  may 
he  remain,  with  unimpaired  faculties,  in  the  wide  field  of  his  usefulness. 
His  charities  have  distilled,  like  the  dews  of  heaven;  he  has  fed  the  hun 
gry,  and  clothed  the  naked;  he  has  given  sight  to  the  blind;  and  for 
such  virtues  there  is  a  reward  on  high,  of  which  all  human  memorials, 
all  language  of  brass  and  stone,  are  but  humble  types  and  attempted 
imitations. 

Time  and  nature  have  had  their  course,  in  diminishing  the  number 
of  those  whom  we  met  here  on  the  iyth  of  June,  1825.  Most  of  the 
revolutionary  characters  then  present  have  since  deceased,  and  Lafay 
ette  sleeps  in  his  native  land.  Yet  the  name  and  blood  of  Warren  are 
with  us;  the  kindred  of  Putnam  are  also  here;  and  near  me,  universally 
beloved  for  his  character  and  his  virtues,  and  now  venerable  for  his 
years,  sits  the  son  of  the  noble-hearted  and  daring  Prescott.  Gideon 
Foster  of  Danvers,  Enos  Reynolds  of  Boxford,  Phineas  Johnson, 
Robert  Andrews,  Elijah  Dresser,  Josiah  Cleaveland,  Jesse  Smith, 
Philip  Bagley,  Needham  Maynard,  Roger  Plaisted,  Joseph  Stephens, 
Nehemiah  Porter,  and  James  Harvey,  who  bore  arms  for  their  country, 


324  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

either  at  Concord  and  Lexington,  on  the  igth  of  April,  or  on  Bunker 
Hill,  all  now  far  advanced  in  age,  have  come  here  to-day,  to  look 
once  more  on  the  field  of  the  exercise  of  their  valor,  and  to  receive  a 
hearty  outpouring  of  our  respect. 

They  have  long  outlived  the  troubles  and  dangers  of  the  Revo 
lution;  they  have  outlived  the  evils  arising  from  the  want  of  a  united 
and  efficient  government;  they  have  outlived  the  pendency  of  im 
minent  dangers  to  the  public  liberty;  they  have  outlived  nearlv 
all  their  contemporaries;  but  they  have  not  outlived — they  can 
not  outlive — the  affectionate  gratitude  of  their  country.  Heaven  has 
not  allotted  to  this  generation  an  opportunity  of  rendering  high  ser 
vices,  and  manifesting  strong  personal  devotion,  such  as  they  ren 
dered  and  manifested,  and  in  such  a  cause  as  roused  the  patriotic  fires 
of  their  youthful  breasts;  and  nerved  the  strength  of  their  arms.  But 
we  may  praise  what  we  cannot  equal,  and  celebrate  actions  which  we 
were  not  born  to  perform.  Pulchrum  est  benefacere  reipubiica,  etiam 
bene  dice  re  hand. 

The  Bunker  Hill  Monument  is  finished.  Here  it  stands.  Fortunate 
in  the  natural  eminence  on  which  it  is  placed — higher,  infinitely  higher 
in  his  objects  and  purpose,  it  rises  over  the  land  and  over  the  sea,  and 
visible,  at  their  homes,  to  three  hundred  thousand  citizens  of  Massa 
chusetts — it  stands  a  memorial  of  the  last,  and  a  monitor  to  the  pres 
ent,  and  all  succeding  generations.  I  have  spoken  of  the  loftiness  of 
its  purpose.  If  it  had  been  without  any  other  design  than  the  creation 
of  a  work  of  art,  the  granite,  of  which  it  is  composed,  would  have 
slept  in  its  native  bed.  It  has  a  purpose;  and  that  purpose  gives  it 
character.  That  purpose  enrobes  it  with  dignity  and  moral  grandeur. 
That  well-known  purpose  it  is  which  causes  us  to  look  up  to  it  with 
a  feeling  of  awe.  It  is  itself  the  orator  of  this  occasion,  it  is  not  from 
my  lips,  it  is  not  from  any  human  lips,  that  that  strain  of  eloquence  is 
this  day  to  flow,  most  competent  to  move  and  excite  the  vast  multi 
tudes  around.  The  potent  speaker  stands  motionless  before  them. 
It  is  a  plain  shaft.  It  bears  no  inscriptions,  fronting  to  the  rising  sun, 
from  which  the  future  antiquarian  shall  wipe  the  dust.  Nor  does  the 
rising  sun  cause  tones  of  music  to  issue  from  its  summit.  But  at  the 
rising  of  the  sun,  and  at  the  setting  of  the  sun,  in  the  blaze  of  noon 
day,  and  beneath  the  milder  effulgence  of  lunar  light,  it  looks,  it 
speaks,  it  acts,  to  the  full  comprehension  of  every  American  mind, 
and  the  awakening  of  glowing  enthusiasm  in  every  American  heart. 
Its  silent,  but  awful  utterance;  its  deep  pathos,  as  it  brings  to  our  con 
templation  the  i  yth  of  June,  1775,  and  the  consequences  which  have 
resulted  to  us,  to  our  country,  and  to  the  world,  from  the  events  of 
that  day,  and  which  we  know  must  continue  to  rain  influence  on  the 
destinies  of  mankind,  to  the  end  of  time;  the  elevation  with  which  it 
raises  us  high  above  the  ordinary  feelings  of  life,  surpasses  all  that  the 
study  of  the  closet,  or  even  the  inspiration  of  genius  can  produce. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  32S 

To-day,  it  speaks  to  us.  Its  future  auditories  will  be  through  succes 
sive  generations  of  men,  as  they  rise  up  before  it,  and  gather  round 
it.  Its  speech  will  be  of  patriotism  and  courage;  of  civil  aud  religious 
liberty;  of  free  government;  of  the  moral  improvement  and  elevation 
of  mankind;  and  of  the  immortal  memory  of  those  who  with  heroic 
devotion  have  sacrificed  their  lives  for  their  country. 

In  the  older  world,  numerous  fabrics  still  exist,  reared  by  human 
hands,  but  whose  object  has  been  lost,  in  the  darkness  of  ages.  They 
are  now  monuments  of  nothing,  but  the  labor  and  skill,  which  con 
structed  them. 

The  mighty  pyramid  itself,  half  buried  in  the  sands  of  Africa,  has 
nothing  to  bring  down  and  report  to  us,  but  the  power  of  kings  and 
the  servitude  of  the  people.  If  it  had  any  purpose  beyond  that  of  a 
mausoleum,  such  purpose  has  perished  from  history,  and  from  tradi 
tion.  If  asked  for  its  moral  object,  its  admonition,  its  sentiment,  its 
instruction  to  mankind,  or  any  high  end  in  its  erection,  it  is  silent — 
silent  as  the  millions  which  lie  in  the  dust  at  its  base,  and  in  the  cata 
combs  which  surround  it.  Without  a  just  moral  object,  therefore, 
made  known  to  man,  though  raised  against  the  skies,  it  excites  only 
conviction  of  power,  mixed  with  strange  wonder.  But  if  the  civiliza 
tion  of  the  present  race  of  men,  founded  as  it  is,  in  solid  science,  the 
true  knowledge  of  nature  and  vast  discoveries  in  art,  and  which  is 
stimulated  and  purified  by  moral  sentiment  and  by  the  truths  of 
Christianity,  be  not  destined  to  destruction,  before  the  final  termina 
tion  of  human  existence  on  earth,  the  object  and  purpose  of  this 
edifice  will  be  known,  till  that  hour  shall  come.  And  even  if  civiliza 
tion  should  be  subverted,  and  the  truths  of  the  Christian  religion  ob 
scured  by  anew  deluge  of  barbarism;  the  memory  of  Bunker  Hill  and 
the  American  Revolution  will  still  be  elements  and  parts  of  the  knowl 
edge,  which  shall  be  possessed  by  the  last  man,  to  whom  the  light  of 
civilization  and  Christianity  shall  be  extended. 

This  celebration  is  honored  by  the  presence  of  the  Chief  Executive 
Magistrate  of  the  Union.  An  occasion  so  national  in  its  object  and 
character,  and  so  much  connected  with  that  Revolution,  from  which 
the  government  sprang,  at  the  head  of  which  he  is  placed,  may  well 
receive  from  him  this  mark  of  attention  and  respect.  Well  acquainted 
with  Yorktown,  the  scene  of  the  last  great  military  struggle  of  the 
Revolution,  his  eye  now  surveys  the  field  of  Bunker  Hill,  the  theatre 
of  the  first  of  these  important  conflicts.  He  sees  where  Warren  fell, 
where  Putnam  and  Prescott  and  Stark  and  Knowlton  and  Brooks 
fought.  He  beholds  the  spot,  where  a  thousand  trained  soldiers  of 
England  were  smitten  to  the  earth,  in  the  firstr  effort  of  Revolutionary 
war,  by  the  arm  of  a  bold  and  determined  yoemanry,  contending  for 
liberty  and  their  country.  And  while  all  assembled  here  entertain 
towards  him  sincere  personal  good  wishes,  and  the  high  respect  due 
to  his  elevated  Qffice  and  station,  it  is  not  be  doubted,  that  he  enters, 


326  A  MERIC.- 1  Ar  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

with  true  American  feeling,  into  the  patriotic  enthusiasm,  kindled  by 
the  occasion,  .which  animates  the  millions  which  surround  him. 

His  Excellency,  the  Governor  of  the  Commonwealth,  the  Governor 
of  Rhode  Island,  and  the  other  distinguished  public  men,  whom  we 
have  the  honor  to  receive  as  visitors  and  guests,  to-day,  will  cordially 
unite  in  a  celebration  connected  with  the  great  event  of  the  Revolu 
tionary  war. 

No  name  in  the  history  of  1775  and  1776  is  more  distinguished  than 
that  of  an  ex-President  of  the  United  States,  whom  we  expected  to  see 
here,  but  whose  ill  health  prevents  his  attendance.  Whenever  popular 
rights  were  to  be  asserted,  an  Adams  was  present;  and  when  the  time 
came,  for  the  formal  Declaration  of  Independence,  it  was  the  voice  of 
an  Adams  that  shook  the  halls  of  Congress.  We  wish  we  could  have 
welcomed  to  us,  this  day,  the  inheritor  of  Revolutionary  blood,  and 
the  just  and  worthy  representative  of  high  Revolutionary  names, 
merit  and  services. 

Banners  and  badges,  processions  and  flags,  announce  to  us,  that 
amidst  this  uncounted  multitude  are  thousands  of  natives  of  New 
England,  now  residents  in  other  States.  Welcome,  ye  kindred  names, 
with  kindred  blood!  From  the  broad  savannas  of  the  South,  from 
the  newer  regions  of  the  West,  from  amidst  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  men  of  Eastern  origin,  who  cultivate  the  rich  valley  of  the  Genesee, 
or  live  along  the  chain  of  the  Lakes,  from  the  mountains  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  the  thronged  cities  of  the  coast,  welcome,  welcome!  Wher 
ever  else  you  may  be  strangers,  here  you  are  all  at  home.  You  as 
semble  at  this  shrine  of  liberty,  near  the  family  altars,  at  which  your 
earliest  devotions  were  paid  to  Heaven;  near  to  the  temples  of  wor 
ship,  first  entered  by  you,  and  near  to  the  schools  and  colleges,  in 
which  your  education  was  received.  You  come  hither  with  a  glorious 
ancestry  of  liberty.  You  bring  names,  which  are  on  the  rolls  of  Lex 
ington,  Concord  and  Bunker  Hill.  You  come,  some  of  you,  once 
more  to  be  embraced  by  an  aged  Revolutionary  father,  or  to  receive 
another,  perhaps,  a  last  blessing,  bestowed  in  love  and  tears,  by  a 
mother,  yet  surviving  to  witness,  and  to  enjoy,  your  prosperity  and 
happiness. 

But  if  family  associations  and  the  recollections  of  the  past,  bring 
you  hither  with  greater  alacrity,  and  mingle  with  your  greeting  much  of 
local  attachment,  and  private  affection,  greeting  also  be  given,  free 
and  hearty  greeting,  to  every  American  citizen  who  treads  this  sacred 
soil  with  patriotic  feeling,  and  respires  with  pleasure  in  an  atmosphere 
fragrant  with  the  recollections  of  1775.  This  occasion  is  respectable — 
nay,  it  is  grand,  it  is  sublime,  by  the  nationality  of  its  sentiment.  In 
the  seventeen  millions  of  happy  people,  who  form  the  American  com 
munity,  there  is  not  one  who  has  not  an  interest  in  this  monument,  as 
there  is  not  one  that  has  not  a  deep  and  abiding  interest  in  that  which 
it  commemorates. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  327 

Woe  betide  the  man,  who  brings  to  this  day's  worship  feeling  less 
than  wholly  American!  Woe  betide  the  man,  who  can  stand  here 
with  the  fires  of  local  resentments  burning,  or  the  purpose  of  foment 
ing  local  jealousies,  and  the  strifes  of  local  interests,  festering  and 
rankling  in  his  heart.  Union,  founded  in  justice,  in  patriotism,  and 
the  most  plain  and  obvious  common  interest;  union,  founded  on  the 
same  love  of  liberty,  cemented  by  blcod  shed  in  the  same  common 
cause;  union  has  been  the  source  of  all  our  glory  and  greatness  thus 
far,  and  is  the  ground  of  all  our  highest  hopes.  This  column  stands 
on  Union.  I  know  not  that  it  might  not  keep  its  position,  if  the 
American  Union,  in  the  mad  conflict  of  human  passions,  and  in  the 
strife  of  parties  and  factions,  should  be  broken  up  and  destroyed.  I 
know  not  that  it  would  totter  and  fall  to  the  earth,  and  mingle  its  frag 
ments  with  the  fragments  of  Liberty  and  the  Constitution,  when  State 
should  be  separated  from  State,  and  faction  and  dismemberment  ob 
literate  forever  all  the  hopes  of  the  founders  of  our  Republic,  and  the 
great  inheritance  of  their  children.  It  might  stand.  But  who,  from 
beneath  the  weight  of  mortification  and  shame,  that  would  oppress 
him,  could  look  up  to  behold  it  ?  For  my  part,  should  I  live  to  such  a 
time,  I  shall  avert  my  eyes  from  it  forever. 

It  is  not  as  a  mere  military  encounter  of  hostile  armies,  that  the 
battle  of  Bunker  Hill  founds  its  principal  claim  to  attention.  Yet, 
even  as  a  mere  battle,  there  were  circumstances  attending  it,  extraor 
dinary  in  character  and  entitling  it  to  peculiar  distinction.  It  was 
fought  on  this  eminence;  in  the  neighborhood  of  yonder  city;  in  the 
presence  of  more  spectators  than  there  were  combatants  in  the  con 
flict.  Men,  women,  and  children,  from  every  commanding  position, 
were  gazing  at  the  battle  and  looking  for  its  result  with  all  the  eager 
ness  natural  to  those  who  knew  that  the  issue  was  fraught  with  the 
deepest  consequences  to  them.  Yet,  on  the  sixteenth  of  June,  1775, 
there  was  nothing  around  this  hill  but  verdure  and  culture.  There 
was,  indeed,  the  note  of  awful  preparation  in  Boston.  There  was  the 
provincial  army  at  Cambridge  with  its  right  flank  resting  on  Dorches 
ter,  and  its  left  on  Chelsea.  But  here  all  was  peace.  Tranquillity 
reigned  around. 

On  the  seventeenth  everything  was  changed.  On  yonder  height 
had  arisen,  in  the  night,  a  redoubt  in  which  Prescott  commanded. 
Perceived  by  the  enemy  at  dawn,  it  was  immediately  cannonaded 
from  the  floating  batteries  in  the  river,  and  the  opposite  shore.  And 
then  ensued  the  hurry  of  preparation  in  Boston,  and  soon  the  troops 
of  Britain  embarked  in  the  attempt  to  dislodge  the  colonists. 

I  suppose  it  would  be  difficult,  in  a  military  point  of  view,  to. ascribe 
to  the  leaders  on  either  side,  any  just  motive  for  the  conflict  which 
followed.  On  the  one  hand  it  could  not  have  been  very  important 
to  the  Americans  to  attempt  to  hem  the  British  within  the  tov/n  by  ad 
vancing  one  single  post  a  quarter  of  a  mile;  while  on  the  other  hand, 


28  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 


if  the  British  found  it  essential  to  dislodge  the  American  troops,  they 
had  it  in  their  power,  at  no  expense  of  life.  By  moving  up  their  ships 
and  batteries,  they  could  have  completely  cut  off  all  communication 
with  the  main  land  over  the  neck,  and  the  forces  in  the  redoubt  would 
have  been  reduced  to  a  state  of  famine  in  forty-eight  hours. 

But  that  was  not  the  day  for  any  such  considerations  on  either 
side!  Both  parties  were  anxious  to  try  the  strength  of  their  arms. 
The  pride  of  England  would  not  permit  the  rebels,  as  she  termed 
them,  to  defy  her  to  the  teeth,  and  without  for  a  moment  calculating 
the  cost,  the  British  General  determined  to  destroy  the  fort  immedi 
ately.  On  the  other  side,  Prescott  and  his  gallant  followers  longed 
and  thirsted  for  a  conflict.  They  wished  it,  and  wished  it  at  once. 
And  this  is  the  true  secret  of  the  movements  on  this  hill. 

I  will  not  attempt  to  describe  the  battle.  The  cannonading — the 
landing  of  the  British — their  advance — the  coolness  with  which  the 
charge  was  met — the  repulse — the  second  attack — the  second  repulse — 
the  burning  of  Charlestown — and  finally  the  closing  assault,  and  the 
slow  retreat  of  the  Americans — the  history  of  all  these  is  familiar. 

But  the  consequences  of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill  are  greater  than 
those  of  any  conflict  between  the  hostile  armies  of  European  powers. 
It  was  the  first  great  battle  of  the  revolution;  and  not  only  the  first 
blow,  but  the  blow  which  determined  the  contest.  It  did  not,  indeed, 
put  an  end  to  the  war,  but  in  the  then  existing  hostile  state  of  feeling, 
the  difficulties  could  only  be  referred  to  the  arbitration  of  the  sword. 
And  one  thing  is  certain;  that  after  the  New  England  troops  had 
shown  themselves  able  to  face  and  repulse  the  regulars,  it  was  de 
cided  that  peace  never  could  be  established  but  upon  the  basis  of  the 
independence  of  the  colonies.  When  the  sun  of  that  day  went  down, 
the  event  of  independence  was  certain!  When  Washington  heard  of 
the  battle  he  inquired  if  the  militia  had  stood  the  fire  of  the  regulars  ? 
And  when  told  that  they  had  not  only  stood  that  fire,  but  reserved 
their  own  till  the  enemy  was  within  eight  rods,  and  then  poured  it  in 
with  tremendous  effect — "  then,"  exclaimed  he,  "  the  liberties  of  the 
country  are  safe!" 

The  consequences  of  this  battle  were  just  of  the  same  importance  as 
the  revolution  itself. 

If  there  was  nothing  of  value  in  the  principles  of  the  American  Revo 
lution,  then  there  is  nothing  valuable  in  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill  and 
its  consequences.  But  if  the  revolution  was  an  era  in  the  history  of 
man,  favorable  to  human  happiness — -if  it  was  an  event  which  marked 
the  progress  of  man,  all  over  the  world,  from  despotism  to  liberty — 
then  this  monument  is  not  raised  without  cause.  Then,  the  battle  of 
Bunker  Hill  is  not  an  event  undeserving  celebrations,  commemora 
tions  and  rejoicings. 

What  then  is  the  true  and  peculiar  principle  of  the  American  revo 
lution,  and  of  the  systems  of  government  which  it  has  confirmed  and 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  329 

established  ?  Now  the  truth  is,  that  the  American  revolution  was  not 
caused  by  the  instantaneous  discovery  of  principles  of  government  be 
fore  unheard  of,  or  the  practicable  adoption  of  political  ideas,  such  as 
had  never  before  entered  into  the  minds  of  men.  It  was  but  the  full 
development  of  principles  of  government,  forms  of  society,  and  politi 
cal  sentiments,  the  origin  of  all  which  lay  back  two  centuries  in  Eng 
lish  and  American  history. 

The  discovery  of  America,  its  colonization  by  the  nations  of 
Europe,  the  history  and  progress  of  the  colonies,  from  their  estab 
lishment,  to  the  time  when  the  principal  of  them  threw  off  their 
allegiance  to  the  respective  states  which  had  planted  them,  and 
founded  governments  of  their  own,  constitute  one  of  the  most  inter 
esting  trains  of  events  in  human  annals.  These  events  occupied 
three  hundred  years;  during  which  period  civilization  and  know 
ledge  made  steady  progress  in  the  old  world;  so  that  Europe,  at 
the  commencement  of  the  nineteenth  century,  had  become  greatly 
changed  from  that  Europe  which  began  the  colonization  of  America 
at  the  commencement  of  the  fifteenth.  And  what  is  most  material 
to  my  present  purpose  is,  that  in  the  progress  of  the  first  of  these 
centuries,  that  is  to  say,  from  the  discovery  of  America  to  the  settle 
ments  of  Virginia  and  Massachusetts,  political  and  religious  events 
took  place,  which  most  materially  affected  the  state  of  society,  and  the 
sentiments  of  mankind,  especially  in  England,  and  in  parts  of  conti 
nental  Europe.  After  a  few  feeble  and  unsuccessful  efforts  by  Eng 
land,  under  Henry  the  Seventh,  to  plant  colonies  in  America,  no 
designs  of  that  kind  were  prosecuted  for  a  long  period,  either  by  the 
English  government,  or  any  of  its  subjects.  Without  inquiring  into 
the  causes  of  this  long  delay,  its  consequences  are  sufficiently  clear 
and  striking.  England  in  this  lapse  of  a  century,  unknown  to  herself 
but  under  the  Providence  of  God,  and  the  influence  of  events,  was 
fitting  herself  for  the  work  of  colonizing  North  America,  on  such 
principles,  and  by  such  men,  as  should  spread  the  English  name  and 
English  blood,  in  time,  over  a  great  portion  of  the  Western  hemi- 
-  sphere.  The  commercial  spirit  was  greatly  encouraged  by  several 
laws  passed  in  Henry  the  Seventh's  reign;  and  in  the  same  reign  en 
couragement  was  given  to  arts  and  manufactures  in  the  Eastern  coun 
tries,  and  some  not  unimportant  modifications  of  the  Feudal  system, 
by  allowing  the  breaking  of  entails.  These,  and  other  measures, 
and  other  occurrences,  were  making  way  for  a  new  class  of  society 
to  emerge,  and  show  itself  in  a  military  and  feudal  age.  A  middle 
class,  neither  Barons  nor  great  landholders  on  the  one  side,  nor 
the  mere  retainers  of  the  Crown,  nor  Barons  nor  mere  agricultural 
laborers  on  the  other.  With  the  rise  and  growth  of  this  new  class 
of  society,  not  only  did  commerce  and  the  arts  increase,  but  better 
education,  a  greater  degree  of  knowledge,  juster  notions  of  the 
true  ends  of  government,  and  sentiments  favorable  to  civil  liberty, 


33°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

began  to  spread  abroad,  and  become  more  and  more  common.  But 
the  plants  springing  from  these  seeds,  were  of  slow  growth.  The 
character  of  English  society  had  indeed  begun  to  undergo  a  change; 
but  changes  of  national  character  are  ordinarily  the  work  of  time* 
Operative  causes  were,  however,  evidently  in  existence,  and  sure 
to  produce,  ultimately,  their  proper  effect.  From  the  accession  of 
Henry  Seventh,  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  civil  wars,  England  enjoyed 
much  more  exemption  from  war,  foreign  and  domestic,  than  for  a  long 
period  before,  and  during  the  controversy  between  the  houses  of  York 
and  Lancaster.  These  years  of  peace  were  favorable  to  commerce 
and  the  arts.  Commerce  and  the  arts  augmented  general  and  individ 
ual  knowledge  and  knowledge  is  the  only  first  fountain,  both  of  the 
love  and  the  principles  of  human  liberty.  Other  powerful  causes  soon 
came  into  active  play.  The  reformation  of  Luther  broke  out,  kindling 
up  the  minds  of  men  afresh,  leading  to  new  habits  of  thought,  and 
awakening  in  individuals  energies  before  unknown  even  to  themselves. 
The  religious  controversies  of  this  period  changed  society  as  well  as 
religion;  indeed,  it  would  be  easy  to  prove,  if  this  occasion  were  proper 
for  it,  that  they  changed  society  to  a  considerable  extent,  where  they 
did  not  change  the  religion  of  the  state.  The  spirit  of  commercial  and 
foreign  adventure,  therefore,  on  the  one  hand,  which  had  gained  so 
much  strength  and  influence,  since  the  time  of  the  discovery  of  America, 
and,  on  the  other,  the  assertion  and  maintenance  of  religious  liberty, 
having  their  source  indeed  in  the  reformation,  but  continued,  diversi. 
fied,  and  continually  strengthened  by  the  subsequent  divisions  of  sen 
timent  and  opinion  among  the  reformers  themselves,  and  this  love  of 
religious  liberty  drawing  after  them,  or  bringing  along  with  them,  as 
they  always  do:  an  ardent  devotion  to  the  principle  of  civil  liberty, 
were  the  powerful  influences,  under  which  character  was  formed,  and 
men  trained  for  the  great  work  of  introducing  English  civilization, 
English  law,  and  what  is  more  than  all,  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  into  the 
wilderness  of  North  America.  Raleigh  and  his  companions  may  be 
considered  as  the  creatures,  principally,  of  the  first  of  these  causes. 
High-spirited,  full  of  the  love  of  personal  adventure,  excited  too,  in 
some  degree,  by  the  hopes  of  sudden  riches  from  the  discovery  of 
mines  of  the  precious  metals,  and  not  unwilling  to  diversify  the  labors 
of  settling  a  colony  with  occasional  cruising  against  the  Spaniards  in 
the  West  Indian  seas,  they  crossed  and  recrossed  the  ocean,  with  a 
frequency  which  surprises  us,  when  we  consider  the  state  of  navigation, 
and  which  evinces  a  most  daring  spirit.  The  other  cause  peopled  New 
England.  The  May-Flower  sought  our  shores  under  no  high-wrought 
spirit  of  commercial  adventure,  no  love  of  gold,  no  mixture  of  purpose, 
warlike  or  hostile,  to  any  human  being,  Like  the  dove  from  the  ark, 
she  had  put  forth  only  to  find  rest.  Solemn  prayers  from  the  shores 
of  the  sea  in  Holland,  had  invoked  for  her,  at  her  departure,  the  bless 
ings  of  Providence.  The  stars  which  guided  her  were  the  unobscured 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  331 

constellations  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  Her  deck  was  the  altar  of 
the  living  God.  Fervent  prayers  from  bended  knees,  mingled  morning 
and  evening,  with  the  voices  of  ocean,  and  the  sighing  of  the  wind  in 
her  shrouds.  Every  prosperous  breeze,  which,  gently  swelling  her 
sails,  helped  the  Pilgrims  onward  in  their  course,  awoke  new  anthems 
of  praise;  and  when  the  elements  were  wrought  into  fury,  neither  the 
tempest,  tossing  their  fragile  bark  like  a  feather,  nor  the  darkness  and 
howling  of  the  midnight  storm,  ever  disturbed,  in  man  or  woman,  the 
firm  and  settled  purpose  of  their  souls,  to  undergo  all,  and  to  do  all, 
that  the  meekest  patience,  the  boldest  resolution,  and  the  highest  trust 
in  God,  could  enable  human  beings  to  suffer  or  to  perform. 

Some  differences  may  doubtless  be  traced  at  this  day,  between  the 
descendants  of  the  eaily  colonists  of  Virginia  and  those  of  New  Eng 
land,  owing  to  the  different  influences  and  different  circumstances 
under  which  the  respective  settlements  were  made.  But  only  enough 
to  create  a  pleasing  variety  in  the  midst  of  a  general  resemblance. 


-fades,  non  omnibus  nna^ 


"Nee  diversa  tanien,  qualem  decet  esse  sororem." 

But  the  habits,  sentiments,  and  objects  of  both,  soon  became  modified 
by  local  causes,  growing  out  of  their  condition  in  the  New  World;  and 
as  this  condition  was  essentially  alike  in  both,  and  as  both  at  once 
adopted  the  same  general  rules  and  principles  of  English  jurisprudence, 
these  differences  gradually  diminished.  They  gradually  disappeared  by 
the  progress  of  time,  and  the  influence  of  intercourse.  The  necessity 
of  some  degree  of  union  and  co-operation  to  defend  themselves  against 
the  savage  tribes,  tended  to  excite  in  them  mutual  respect  and  regard. 
They  fought  together  in  the  wars  against  France.  The  great  and 
common  cause  of  the  revolution  bound  them  together  by  new  links  of 
brotherhobod;  and  finally,  fortunately,  happily,  and  gloriously,  the 
present  form  of  government  united  them  to  form  the  Great  Republic 
of  the  world,  and  bound  up  their  interest  and  fortunes,  till  the  whole 
earth  sees  that  there  is  now  for  them,  in  present  possession,  as  well 
as  future  hope,  only  "  One  Country,  One  Constitution,  and  One 
Destiny." 

The  colonization  of  the  tropical  region,  and  the  whole  of  the  South 
ern  parts  of  the  continent,  by  Spain  and  Portugal,  was  conducted  on 
other  principles,  under  the  influence  of  other  motives,  and  followed  by 
far  different  consequences.  From  the  time  of  its  discovery,  the  Span 
ish  government  pushed  forward  its  settlements  in  America,  not  only 
with  vigor,  but  with  eagerness;  so  that  long  before  the  first  permanent 
English  settlement  had  been  accomplished,  in  what  is  now  the  United 
States,  Spain  had  conquered  Mexico,  Peru,  and  Chili;  and  stretched 
her  power  over  nearly  all  the  territory  she  ever  acquired  in  this  conti 
nent.  The  rapidity  of  these  conquests  is  to  be  ascribed  in  a  great  de 
gree,  to  the  eagerness,  not  to  say  the  rapacity,  of  those  numerous  bands 


33  2  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

of  adventurers  who  were  stimulated  to  subdue  immense  regions,  and 
take  possession  of  them  in  the  name  of  the  crown  of  Spain.  The 
mines  of  gold  and  silver  were  the  excitement  to  these  efforts,  and 
accordingly  settlements  were  generally  made,  and  Spanish  authority 
established  on  the  immediate  eve  of  the  subjugation  of  territory,  that 
the  native  population  might  be  set  to  work  by  their  new  Spanish  masters, 
in  the  mines.  From  these  facts,  the  love  of  gold — gold  not  produced 
by  industry,  nor  accumulated  by  commerce,  but  gold  dug  from  its 
native  bed  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  and  that  earth  ravished  from  its 
rightful  possessors  by  every  possible  degree  of  enormity,  cruelty,  and 
crime,  was  long  the  governing  passion  in  Spanish  wars,  and  Spanish 
settlements,  in  America.  Even  Columbus  himself  did  not  wholly 
escape  the  influence  of  this  base  motive.  In  his  early  voyages  we  find 
him  passing  from  island  to  island,  inquiring  everywhere  for  gold;  as  if 
God  had  opened  the  new  world  to  the  knowledge  of  the  old,  only  to 
gratify  a  passion  equally  senseless  and  sordid;  and  to  offer  up  millions 
of  an  unoffending  race  of  men  to  the  destruction  of  the  sword,  sharp 
ened  both  by  cruelty  and  rapacity.  And  yet  Columbus  was  far  above 
his  age  and  country.  Enthusiastic,  indeed,  but  sober,  religious,  and 
magnanimous;  born  to  great  things  and  capable  of  high  sentiments,  as 
his  noble  discourse  before  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  as  well  as  the 
whole  history  of  his  life  shows.  Probably  he  sacrificed  much  to  the 
known  sentiments  of  others,  and  addressed  to  his  followers  motives 
likely  to  influence  them.  At  the  same  time  it  is  evident  that  he  him 
self  looked  upon  the  world  which  he  discovered  as  a  world  of  wealth, 
all  ready  to  be  seized  and  enjoyed. 

The  conquerors  and  the  European  settlers  of  Spanish  America  were 
mainly  military  commanders  and  common  soldiers.  The  monarchy 
of  Spain  was  not  transferred  to  this  hemisphere,  but  it  acted  in  it,  as 
it  acted  at  home,  through  its  ordinary  means,  and  its  true  representa 
tive,  military  force.  The  robbery  and  destruction  of  the  native  race 
was  the  achievement  of  standing  armies,  in  the  right  of  the  king,  and 
by  his  authority;  fighting  in  his  name,  for  the  aggrandizement  of  his 
power,  and  the  extension  of  his  prerogatives;  with  military  ideas  under 
arbitrary  maxims,  a  portion  of  that  dreadful  instrumentality  by  which 
a  perfect  despotism  governs  a  people.  As  there  was  no  liberty  in 
Spain,  how  could  liberty  be  transmitted  to  Spanish  colonies  ? 

The  colonists  of  English  America  were  of  the  people,  and  a  people 
already  free.  They  were  of  the  middle,  industrious,  and  already  pros 
perous  class,  the  inhabitants  of  commercial  and  manufacturing  cities, 
among  whom  liberty  first  revived  and  respired,  after  a  sleep  of  a 
thousand  years  in  the  bosom  of  the  dark  ages.  Spain  descended  on 
the  new  world  in  the  armed  and  terrible  image  of  her  monarchy  and 
her  soldiery;  England  approached  it  in  the  winning  and  popular  garb 
of  personal  rights,  public  protection  and  civil  freedom.  England  trans 
planted  liberty  to  America;  Spain  transplanted  power.  England, 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  333 

through  the  agency  of  private  companies1,  and  the  efforts  pf  individu 
als,  colonized  this  part  of  North  America,  by  industrious  individuals, 
making  their  own  way  in  the  wilderness,  defending  themselves  against 
the  savages,  recognising  their  right  to  the  soil,  and  with  a  general 
honest  purpose  of  introducing  knowledge  as  well  as  Christianity 
among  them.  Spain  stooped  on  South  America,  like  a  falcon  on  its 
prey.  Everything  was  gone.  Territories  were  acquired  by  fire  and 
swprd.  Cities  were  destroyed  by  fire  and  sword.  Hundreds  of  thou 
sands  of  human  beings  fell  by  fire  and  sword.  Even  conversion  to 
Christianity  was  attempted  by  fire  and  sword. 

Behold,  then,  fellow-citizens,  the  difference  resulting  from  the 
operation  of  the  two  principles!  Here,  to-day,  on  the  summit  of 
Bunker  Hill,  and  at  the  foot  of  the  monument,  behold  the  difference! 
I  would,  that  the  fifty  thousand  voices  present  could  proclaim  it,  with 
a  shout  which  should  be  heard  over  the  globe.  Our  inheritance  was 
of  liberty,  secured  and  regulated  by  law,  and  enlightened  by  religion 
and  knowledge;  that  of  South  America  was  of  power,  stern,  unrelent 
ing,  tyrannical  military  power.  And  look  to  the  results,  on  the  gen 
eral  and  aggregate  happiness  of  the  human  race.  And  behold  the 
results,  in  all  the  regions  conquered  by  Cortes  and  Pizarro,  and  the 
contrasted  results  here.  I  suppose  the  territory  of  the  United  States 
may  amount  to  one-eighth  or  one- tenth  of  that  colonized  by  Spain  on 
this  continent,  and  yet  in  all  that  vast  region  there  are  but  between  one 
and  two  millions  of  European  color  and  European  blood;  while  in  the 
United  States  there  are  fourteen  millions  who  rejoice  in  their  descent 
from  the  people  of  the  more  northern  part  of  Europe. 

But  we  follow  the  difference,  in  the  original  principle  of  coloniza 
tion,  and  in  its  character  and  objects,  still  further.  We  must  look  to 
moral  and  intellectual  results;  we  must  consider  consequences,  not 
only  as  they  show  themselves  in  the  greater  or  less  multiplication  of 
men  or  the  supply  of  their  physical  wants — but  in  their  civilization, 
improvement  and  happiness  we  must  inquire  what  progress  has  been 
made  in  the  true  science  of  liberty,  and  in  the  knowledge  of  the  great 
principles  of  self-government. 

I  would  not  willingly  say  anything  on  this  occasion,  discourteous  fo 
the  new  governments,  founded  on  the  demolition  of  the  power  of  the 
Spanish  monarchy.  They  are  yet  on  their  trial,  and  I  hope  for  a  fa 
vorable  result.  But  truth,  sacred  truth,  and  fidelity  to  the  cause  of 
civil  liberty,  compels  me  to  say,  that  hitherto  they  have  discovered 
quite  too  much  of  the  spirit  of  that  monarchy,  from  which  they  sepa 
rated  themselves.  Quite  too  frequent  resource  is  made  to  military 
force;  and  quite  too  much  of  the  substance  of  the  people  consumed, 
maintaining  armies,  not  for  defence  against  foreign  aggression 
only,  but  for  enforcing  obedience  to  domestic  authority.  Standing 
armies  are  the  oppressive  instruments  for  governing  the  people,  in  the 
hands  of  hereditary  and  arbitrary  monarchs.  A  military  republic,  a 


fo 
in 


334  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM.  t 

government  founded  on  mock  elections,  and  supported  only  by  the 
sword,  is  atnovement  indeed,  but  a  retrograde  and  disastrous  move 
ment,  from  the  monarchical  systems.  If  men  would  enjoy  the  blessings 
of  republican  government,  they  must  govern  themselves  by  reason, 
by  mutual  counsel  and  consultation,  by  a  sense  and  feeling  of  general 
interest,  and  by  the  acquiescence  of  the  minority  in  the  will  of  the  ma 
jority,  properly  expressed;  and  above  all,  the  military  must  be  kept, 
according  to  the  language  of  our  bill  of  rights,  in  strict  subordination 
to  the  civil  authority.  Wherever  this  lesson  is  not  both  learned  and 
practised,  there  can  be  no  political  freedom.  Absurd,  preposterous  is 
it — a  scoff  and  a  satire  on  free  forms  of  constitutional  liberty,  for  con 
stitutions  and  frames  of  government  to  be  prescribed  by  military  lead 
ers,  and  the  right  of  suffrage  to  be  exercised  .at  the  point  of  the  sword. 

Making  all  allowance  for  situation  and  climate,  it  cannot  be  doubted 
by  intelligent  minds  that  the  difference  now  existing  between  North 
and  South  America  is  justly  attributable,  in  a  degree,  to  political  in 
stitutions.  And  how  broad  that  difference  is!  Suppose  an  assembly, 
in  one  of  the  valleys,  or  on  the  side  of  one  of  the  mountains  of  the 
southern  half  of  the  hemisphere,  to  be  held,  this  day,  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  a  large  city — what  would  be  the  scene  presented  ?  Yonder  is 
a  volcano,  flaming  and  smoking,  but  shedding  no  light,  moral  or  in 
tellectual.  As  its  foot  is  the  mine,  yielding,  perhaps,  sometimes, 
large  gains  to  capital,  but  in  which  labor  is  destined  to  eternal  and  un 
requited  toil,  and  rewarded  only  by  penury  and  beggary.  The  city 
is  filled  with  armed  men;  not  a  free  people,  armed  and  coming  forth 
voluntarily  to  rejoice  in  a  public  festivity,  but  hireling  troops,  sup 
ported  by  forced  loans,  excessive  impositions  on  commerce,  or  taxes 
wrung  from  a  half  fed,  and  a  half  clothed  population.  For  the  great 
there  are  palaces  covered  with  gold,  for  the  poor  there  are  hovels  of 
the  meanest  sort.  There  is  an  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  enjoying  the 
wealth  of  princes;  but  there  are  no  means  of  education  to  the  people, 
Do  public  improvements  favor  intercourse  between  place  and  place  ? 
So  far  from  this,  that  the  traveller  cannot  pass  from  town  to  town, 
without  danger,  every  mile,  of  robbery  and  assassination.  I  would 
not  overcharge  or  exaggerate  this  picture;  but  its  principal  sketches 
•are  all  too  true. 

And  how  does  it  contrast  with  the  scene  now  actually  before  us? 
Look  round  upon  these  fields;  they  are  verdant  and  beautiful,  well 
cultivated,  and  at  this  moment  loaded  with  the  riches  of  the  early 
harvest.  The  hands  which  till  them  are  free  owners  of  the  soil,  en 
joying  equal  rights,  and  protected  by  law  from  oppression  and 
tyranny.  Look  to  the  thousand  vessels  in  our  sight,  filling  the  har 
bor,  or  covering  the  neighboring  sea.  They  are  the  instruments  of  a 
profitable  commerce,  carried  on  by  men  who  know  that  the  profits  of 
their  hardy  enterprise,  when  they  make  them,  are  their  own;  and  this 
commerce  is  encouraged  and  regulated  by  wise  laws,  and  defended, 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  335 

when  need  be,  by  the  valor  and  patriotism  of  the  country.  Look  to 
that  fair  city,  the  abode  of  so  much  diffused  wealth,  so  much  general 
happiness  and  comfort,  so  much  personal  independence,  and  so  much 
general  knowledge.  She  fears  no  forced  contributions,  no  siege  or 
sacking  from  military  leaders  of  rival  factions.  The  hundred  tem 
ples,  in  which  her  citizens  worship  God,  are  in  no  danger  of  sacrilege. ' 
The  regular  administration  of  the  laws  encounters  no  obstacle  ?  The 
long  processions  of  children  and  youth,  which  you  see  this  day  issuing 
by  thousands  from  the  free  schools,  prove  the  care  and  anxiety  with  * 
which  a  popular  government  provides  for  the  education  and  morals  of 
the  people.  Everywhere  there  is  order;  everywhere  there  is  security. 
Everywhere  the  law  reaches  to  the  highest,  and  reaches  to  the  lowest, 
to  .protect  him  in  his  rights,  and  to  restrain  him  from  wrong;  and  over 
all  hovers  liberty,  that  liberty  which  our  fathers  fought  and  fell  for  on 
this  very  spot,  with  her  eye  ever  watchful,  and  her  eagle  wing  ever 
wide  outspread. 

The  colonies  of  Spain  from  their  origin  to  their  end  were  subject  to 
the  sovereign  authority  of  the  kingdom.  Their  government,  as  well 
as  their  commerce,  was  a  strict  home  monopoly.  If  we  add  to  this 
the  established  usage  of  filling  important  posts  in  the  administration 
of  the  colonies,  exclusively  by  natives  of  old  Spain,  thus  cutting  off 
forever  all  hopes  of  honorable  preferment  from  every  man  born  in  the 
western  hemisphere,  causes  enough  rise  up  before  us  at  once  to  ac 
count  fully  for  the  subsequent  history  and  character  of  these  provinces. 
The  Viceroys  and  Provincial  Governors  of  Spain  were  never  at  home 
in  their  governments  in  America.  They  did  not  feel  that  they  were  of 
the  people  whom  they  governed.  Their  official  character  and  employ 
ment  have  a  good  deal  of  resemblance  to  those  of  the  Pro-consuls 
of  Rome,  in  Asia,  Sicily  and  Gaul;  but  obviously  no  resemblance  to 
those  of  Carver  and  Winthrop,  and  very  little  to  those  of  the  Gov 
ernors  of  Virginia  after  that  colony  had  established  a  popular  house  of 
burgesses. 

The  English  colonists  in  America,  generally  speaking,  were  men 
who  were  seeking  new  homes  in  a  new  wrorld.  They  brought  wiih 
them  their  families  and  all  that  was  most  dear  to  them.  This  was 
especially  the  case  with  the  colonists  of  Plymouth  and  Massachu 
setts.  Many  of  them  were  educated  men,  and  all  possessed  their 
full  share,  according  to  their  social  condition,  of  the  knowledge  and 
attainments  of  that  age.  The  distinctive  characteristic  of  their  set 
tlement  is  the  introduction  of  the  civilization  of  Europe  into  a 
wilderness,  without  bringing  with  it  the  political  institutions  of  Eu 
rope.  The  arts,  sciences,  and  literature  of  England  came  over  with 
the  settlers.  That  great  portion  of  the  common  law,  which  regulates 
the  social  and  personal  relations  and  conduct  of  men,  came  also.  The 
jury  came;  the  habeas  corpus  came;  the  testamentary  power  came, 
and  the  law  of  inheritance  and  descent  came  also,  except  that  part  of 


356  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

it  which  recognizes  the  rights  of  primogeniture,  which  either  did  not 
come  at  all,  or  soon  gave  way  to  the  rule  of  equal  partition  of  estates 
among  children.  But  the  monarchy  did  not  come,  nor  the  aristocracy, 
nor  the  church  as  an  estate  of  the  realm.  Political  institutions  were  to 
be  framed  anew,  such  as  should  be  adapted  to  the  state  of  things. 
But  it  could  not  be  doubtful  what  should  be  the  nature  and  character 
of  these  institutions.  A  general  social  equality  prevailed  among  the 
settlers,  and  an  equality  of  political  rights  seemed  the  natural,  if  not 
the  necessary  consequence.  After  forty  years  of  revolution,  violence 
and  war  the  people  of  France  have  placed  at  the  head  of  the  funda 
mental  instrument  of  their  government,  as  the  great  boon  obtained 
by  all  their  sufferings  and  sacrifices,  the  declaration  that  all  French 
men  are  equal  before  the  law.  What  France  had  reached  only  by 
the  expenditure  of  so  much  blood  and  treasure,  and  the  exhibition 
of  so  much  crime,  the  English  colonists  obtained,  by  simply  chang 
ing  their  place,  carrying  with  them  the  intellectual  and  moral  cul 
ture  of  Europe,  and  the  personal  and  social  relations  to  which  they 
were  accustomed,  but  leaving  behind  their  political  institutions.  It 
has  been  said  with  much  veracity,  that  the  felicity  of  the  American 
colonies  consisted  in  their  escape  from  the  past.  This  is  true,  so  far 
as  respects  political  establishments,  but  no  further.  They  brought 
with  them  a  full  portion  of  all  the  riches  of  the  past,  in  science,  in  art, 
in  morals,  religion  and  literature.  The  Bible  came  with  them.  And 
it  is  not  to  be  doubted,  that  to  the  free  and  universal  reading  of  the 
Bible,  is  to  be  ascribed  in  that  age,  ascribed  in  every  age,  that  men 
were  much  indebted  for  right  views  of  civil  liberty.  The  Bible  is  a 
book  of  faith,  and  a  book  of  doctrine  ;  but  it  is  also  a  book,  which 
teaches  man  his  owTn  individual  responsibility,  his  own  dignity,  and 
his  equality  with  his  fellow  man.  Bacon,  and  Locke,  and  Milton  and 
Shakspeare  also  came  with  them.  They  came  to  form  new  political 
systems,  but  all  that  belonged  to  cultivated  man,  to  family,  to  neigbor- 
hood,  to  social  relations,  accompanied  them.  In  the  Doric  phrase  of 
one  of  our  own  historians,  tg  they  came  to  settle  on  bare  creation  ;" 
but  their  settlement  in  the  wilderness,  nevertheless,  was  not  a  lodg 
ment  of  nominal  tribes,  a  mere  resting-place  of  roaming  savages.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  a  permanent  community,  the  fixed  residence  of 
cultivated  men.  Not  only  was  English  literature  read,  but  English, 
good  English,  was  spoken  and  written,  before  the  axe  had  made  way 
to  let  in  the  sun  upon  the  habitations  and  fields  of  the  settlers.  And 
whatever  may  be  said  to  the  contrary,  a  correct  use  of  the  English 
language  is,  at  this  day,  more  general  throughout  the  United 
States  than  it  is  throughout  England  herself.  But  another  grand 
characteristic  is,  that  in  the  English  colonies,  political  affairs  were 
left  to  be  managed  by  the  colonists  themselves.  There  is  another 
fact  wholly  distinguishing  them  in  character  as  it  has  distinguished 

them  in  fortune,  from  the  colonists  of  Spain.     Here  lies  the  founda- 

v 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  337 

tion  of  that  experience  in  self-government,  which  had  preserved  order, 
and  security,  and  regularity  amidst  the  play  of  popular  institutions. 
Home  government  was  the  secret  of  the  prosperity  of  the  North 
American  settlements.  The  more  distinguished  of  the  New  England 
colonists,  with  a  most  remarkable  sagacity,  and  a  long-sighted  reach 
into  futurity,  refused  to  come  to  America,  unless  they- could  bring 
with  them  charters  providing  for  the  administration  of  their  affairs 
in  this  country.  They  saw,  from  the  first,  the  evils  of  being  gov 
erned  in  a  new  world  by  counsels  held  in  the  old.  Acknowledging 
the  general  superiority  of  the  Crown,  they  still  insisted  on  the  right  of 
passing  local  laws,  and  of  local  administration.  And  history  teaches 
us  the  justice  and  the  value  of  this  determination,  in  the  example  of 
Virginia.  The  attempts  early  to  settle  that  colony  failed,  sometimes 
with  the  most  melancholy  and  fatal  consequences,  from  want  of 
knowledge,  care  and  attention  on  the  part  of  those  who  had  the  charge 
of  their  affairs  in  England  ;  and  it  was  only  after  the  issuing  of  the  third 
charter,  that  its  prosperity  fairly  commenced.  The  cause  was  that, 
by  that  third  charter,  the  people  of  Virginia  (for  by  this  time  they  so 
deserved  to  be  called),  were  allowed  to  constitute  and  establish  the 
first  popular  representative  Assembly,  which  ever  convened  on  this 
continent,  the  Virginia  House  of  Burgesses. 

Here  then,  are  the  great  elements  of  our  political  system  originally 
introduced,  early  in  operation,  and  ready  to  be  developed,  more  and 
more  as  the  progress  of  events  should  justify  or  demand. 

Escape  from  the  existing  political  systems  of  Europe  ;  but  the  con 
tinued  enjoyment  of  its  sciences  and  arts,  its  literature,  and  its  man 
ners  ;  with  a  series  of  improvements  upon  its  religious  and  moral 
sentiments  and  habits  ;  home  governments  ;  or  the  power  of  passing- 
local  laws,  with  a  local  administration. 

Equality  of  rights. 

Representative  systems. 

Free  forms  of  Government,  founded  on  popular  representation. 

Few  topics  are  more  inviting,  or  more  fit  for  philosophical  discus* 
sion,  than  the  action  and  influence  of  the  new  world  upon  the"  old  ;  o> 
the  contributions  of  America  to  Europe. 

Her  obligations  to  Europe  for  science  and  art,  laws,  literature  am 
manners,  America  acknowledges  as  she  ought,  with  respect  am' 
gratitude.  And  the  people  of  the  United  States,  descendants  of  the 
English  stock,  grateful  for  the  treasures  of  knowledge  derived  fron 
their  English  ancestors,  acknowledge  also,  with  thanks  and  filia 
regard,  that  among  those  ancestors,  under  the  culture  of  Hampder 
and  Sydney,  and  other  assiduous  friends,  that  seed  of  popular  liberty 
first  germinated,  which  on  our  soil  has  shot  up  to  its  full  height,  unti' 
its  branches  overshadow  all  the  land. 

But  America  has  not  failed  to  make  returns.  If  she  has  not  can 
celled  the  obligation,  or  equalled  it  by  others  of  like  weight,  she  has, 


338  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

at  least,  made  respectable  advances,  and  some  approaches  towards 
equality.  And  she  admits,  that  standing  in  the  midst  of  civilized 
nations,  and  in  a  civilized  age — a  nation  among  nations — there  is  a 
high  part  which  she  is  expected  to  act,  for  the  general  advance  of 
human  interests  and  human  welfare. 

American  mines  have  filled  the  mints  of  Europe  with  the  precious 
metals.  The  productions  of  the  American  soil  and  climate  have 
poured  out  their  abundance  of  luxuries  for  the  tables  of  the  rich,  and 
of  necessaries  for  the  sustenance  of  the  poor.  Birds  and  animals 
of  beauty  and  value  have  been  added  to  the  European  stocks  ;  and 
transplantations  from  the  transcendant  and  unequalled  riches  of  our 
forests  have  mingled  themselves  profusely  with  the  elms,  and  ashes, 
and  druidical  oaks  of  England. 

America  has  made  contributions  far  more  vast.  Who  can  estimate 
the  amount,  or  the  value,  of  the  augmentation  of  the  commerce  of  the 
world,  that  has  resulted  from  America  ?  Who  can  imagine  to  himself 
what  would  be  the  shock  to  the  Eastern  Continent,  if  the  Atlantic 
were  no  longer  traversable,  or  there  were  no  longer  American  pro 
ductions,  or  American  markets  ? 

But  America  exercises  influences,  or  holds  out  examples  for  the 
consideration  of  the  Old  World,  of  a  much  higher,  because  they  are  &f 
a  moral  and  political  character. 

America  has  furnished  to  Europe  proof  of  the  fact  that  popular  in 
stitutions,  founded  on  equality  and  the  principle  of  representation,  are 
capable  of  maintaining  governments — able  to  secure  the  rights  of 
person,  property  and  reputation. 

America  has  proved  that  it  is  practicable  to  elevate  the  mass  of 
mankind — that  portion  which  in  Europe  is  called  the  laboring,  or 
lower  class — to  raise  them  to  self  respect,  to  make  them  competent  to 
act  a  part  in  the  great  right,  and  great  duty,  of  self-government  ; 
and  this  she  has  proved  may  be  done  by  education  and  the  diffusion 
of  knowledge.  She  holds  out  an  example,  a  thousand  times  more 
enchanting  than  ever  was  presented  before,  to  those  nine-tenths  of 
the  human  race  who  are  born  without  hereditary  fortune  or  hereditary- 
rank. 

America  has  furnished  to  the  world  the  character  of  Washington  ! 
And  if  our  American  institutions  had  done  nothing  else,  that  alone 
would  have  entitled  them  to  the  respect  of  mankind. 

Washington  !  "  First  in  war,  first  in  peace,  and  first  in  the  hearts 
of  his  countrymen  !"  Washington  is  all  our  own  !  The  enthusiastic 
veneration  and  regard  in  which  the  people  of  the  United  States  hold 
him,  prove  them  to  be  worthy  of  such  a  countryman;  while  his  rep 
utation  abroad  reflects  the  highest  honor  on  his  country  and  its  insti 
tutions.  I  would  cheerfully  put  the  question  to-day  to  the  intelligence 
of  Europe  and  the  world,  What  character  of  the  century,  upon  the  whole, 
stands  out  in  the  relief  of  history,  most  pure,  most  respectable,  most 


DANIEL    WEBSTER.  339 

sublime;  and  I  doubt  not,  that  by  a  suffrage  approaching  to  unanimity, 
the  answer  would  be  Washington  ! 

This  structure,  by  its  uprightness,  its  solidity,  its  durability,  is  no  unfit 
emblem  of  his  character.  His  public  virtues  and  public  principles 
were  as  firm  as  the  earth  on  which  it  stands;  his  personal  motives,  as 
pure  as  the  serene  heaven  in  which  its  summit  is  lost.  But,  indeed, 
though  a  fit,  it  is  an  inadequate  emblem.  Towering  high  above  the 
column  which  our  hands  have  builded,  beheld,  not  by  the  inhabitants 
of  a  single  city  or  a  single  State — ascends  the  colossal  grandeur  of  his 
character,  and  his  life.  In  all  the  constituents  of  the  one — in  all  the 
acts  of  the  other — in  all  its  titles  to  immortal  love,  admiration  and  re- 
riown — it  is  an  American  production.  It  is  the  embodiment  and  vin 
dication  of  our  transatlantic  liberty.  Born  upon  our  soil — of  parents 
also  born  upon  it — never  for  a  moment  having  had  a  sight  of  the  old 
world — instructed,  according  to  the  modes  of  his  time,  only  in  the 
spare,  plain,  but  wholesome  elementary  knowledge  which  our  insti 
tutions  provided  for  the  children  of  the  people — growing  up  beneath 
and  penetrated  by  the  genuine  influences  of  American  society — grow 
ing  up  amidst  our  expanding,  but  not  luxurious,  civilization — partak 
ing  in  our  great  destiny  of  labor,  our  long  contest  with  unreclaimed 
nature  and  uncivilized  man — our  agony  of  glory,  the  war  of  indepen 
dence — our  great  victory  of  peace,  the  formation  of  the  Union  and  the 
establishment  of  the  Constitution — he  is  all — all  our  own  !  That 
crowded  and  glorious  life — 

"  Where  multitudes  of  virtues  passed  along, 
Each  pressing-  foremost  in  the  mighty  throngf 
Contending  to  be  seen,  then  making  room 
For  greater  multitudes  that  were  to  come  ; — " 

that  life  was  the  life  of  an  American  citizen. 

I  claim  him  for  America.  In  all  the  perils,  in  every  darkened  mo 
ment  of  the  State,  in  the  midst  of  the  reproaches  of  enemies  and  of  mis 
givings  of  friends — I  turn  to  that  transcendant  name  for  courage  and 
for  consolation.  To  him  who  denies,  or  doubts  whether  our  fervid 
liberty  can  be  combined  with  law,  with  order,  with  the  security  of 
property,  with  the  pursuits  and  advancement  of  happiness — to  him 
who  denies  that  our  institutions  are  capable  of  producing  exaltation  of 
soul  and  the  passion  of  true  glory — to  him  who  denies  that  we  have 
contributed  anything  to  the  stock  of  great  lessons  and  great  examples 
— to  all  these  I  reply  by  pointing  to  Washington  ! 

And  now,  friends  and  fellow-citizens,  it  is  time  to  bring  this  discourse 
to  a  close. 

We  have  indulged  in  gratifying  recollections  of  the  past,  in  the 
prosperity  and  pleasures  of  the  present,  and  in  high  hopes  of  the 
future.  But  let  us  remember  that  we  have  duties  and  obligations  to 
perform,  corresponding  to  the  blessings  which  we  enjoy.  Let  us 
remember  the  trust,  the  sacred  trust,  attaching  to  the  rich  in- 


34°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

heritance  which  we  have  received  from  our  fathers.  Let  us  fee) 
our"  personal  responsibility,  to  the  full  extent  of  our  power  and 
influence,  for  the  preservation  of  our  institutions  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty.  And  let  us  remember  that  it  is  only  religion,  and  morals,  and 
knowledge,  that  can  make  men  respectable  and  happy  under  any  form 
of  government.  Let  us  hold  fast  the  great  truth  that  communities  are 
responsible,  as  well  as  individuals;  that  no  government  is  respectable 
which  is  not  just;  that  without  unspotted  purity  of  public  faith,  with 
out  sacred  public  principle,  fidelity  and  honor — no  mere  forms  of  gov 
ernment,  no  machinery  of  laws,  can  give  dignity  to  political  society. 
In  our  day  and  generation  let  us  seek  to  raise  and  improve  the  moral 
sentiment,  so  that  we  may  look,  not  for  a  degraded,  but  for  an  elevated 
and  improved  future.  And  when  we,  and  our  children,  shall  all  have 
been  consigned  to  the  house  appointed  for  all  living,  may  love  of 
country — and  pride  of  country — glow  with  equal  fervor  among  those 
to  whom  our  names  and  our  blood  shall  have  descended  !  And  then, 
when  honored  and  decrepid  age  shall  lean  against  the  base  of  this 
monument,  and  troops  of  ingenuous  youth  shall  be  gathered  round  it, 
and  when  the  one  shall  speak  to  the  other  of  its  objects,  the  purposes 
of  its  construction,  and  the  great  and  glorious  events  with  which  it  is 
connected — there  shall  rise,  from  every  youthful  breast,  the  ejaculation 
— '*  thank  God,  I — I  also — am  an  American." 


THE  TRUE  GRANDEUR  OF  NATIONS. 

CHARLES  SUMNER. 

Boston,  July  4,  1845. 

O  !  yet  a  nobler  task  awaits  thy  hand  ! 

For  what  can  War  but  endless  War  still  breed  ? 
Till  Truth  and  Right  from  Violence  be  freed. 

—MILTON,  SONNET  TO  FAIRFAX. 

IT  was  a  plea  for  universal  peace,  a  poetic  rhapsody  on  the  wrongs  and  horrors 
of  war,  and  the  beauties  of  concord  ;  not,  indeed,  without  solid  argument,  but  that 
argument  clothed  in  all  the  gorgeousness  of  historical  illustration,  classic  imagery, 
and  fervid  effusion,  rising  high  above  the  level  of  the  existing  conditions,  and  pic 
turing  an  ideal  future, —  the  universal  reign  of  justice  and  charity, — not  far  off  to 
his  own  imagination,  but  far  beyond  the  conceptions  of  living  society  ;  but  to  that 
society  he  addressed  the  urgent  summons  to  go  forth  at  once  in  pursuit  of  this  ideal 
consummation  to  transform  all  swords  into  ploughshares,  and  all  war-ships  into 
peaceful  merchantmen,  without  delay  ;  believing  that  thus  the  nation  would  rise 
to  a  greatness  never  known  before,  which  it  could  accomplish  if  it  only  willed  it. 

And  this  speech  he  delivered  while  the  citizen  soldiery  of  Boston,  in  festive  array, 
were  standing  before  him,  and  while  the  very  air  was  stirred  by  the  premonitory 
mutterings  of  an  approaching  war. 

The  whole  man  revealed  himself  in  that  utterance. — a  soul  full  of  the  native  in 
stinct  of  justice,  an  overpowering  sense  of  right  and  wrong  which  rrade  him  look  at 
the  problems  of  human  society  from  the  lofty  plane  of  an  ideal  mortality,  which  fixed 
for  him,  high  beyond  the  existing  condition  of  things,  the  aims  for  which  he  must 
strive,  and  inspired  and  fired  his  ardent  nature  for  the  struggle." 

CARL  SCHURZ. 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  341 

It  is  in  obedience  to  an  uninterrupted  usage  in  our  community  that, 
on  this  Sabbath  of  the  Nation,  we  have  all  put  aside  the  common  cares 
of  life,  and  seized  a  respite  from  the  never-ending  toils  of  labor,  to 
meet  in  gladness  and  congratulation,  mindful  of  the  blessings  trans 
mitted  from  the  past,  mindful  also,  I  trust,  of  the  duties  to  the  present 
and  the  future.  May  he  who  now  addresses  you  be  enabled  so  to 
direct  your  minds,  that  you  shall  not  seem  to  have  lost  a  day  ! 

All  hearts  first  turn  to  the  Fathers  of  the  Republic.  Their  venerable 
forms  rise  before  us,  and  we  seem  to  behold  them,  in  the  procession 
of  successive  generations.  They  come  from  the  frozen  rock  of  Ply 
mouth,  from  the  wasted  bands  of  Raleigh,  from  the  Heavenly  com 
panionship  of  William  Penn,  from  the  anxious  councils  of  the  Revolu 
tion,  and  from  all  those  fields  of  sacrifice,  on  which,  in  obedience  to 
the  spirit  of  their  age,  they  sealed  their  devotion  to  duty  with  their 
blood,  they  seem  to  speak  to  us,  their  children  :  "  Cease  to  vaunt  your 
selves  of  what  you  do,  and  of  what  has  been  done  for  you.  Learn  to 
walk  humbly,  and  to  think  meekly  of  yourselves.  Cultivate  habits  of 
self-sacrifice  and  of  devotion  to  duty.  May  our  words  be  always  in 
your  minds,  never  aim  at  aught  which  is  not  right,  persuaded  that 
without  this,  every  possession  and  all  knowledge  will  become  an  evil 
and  a  shame.  Strive  to  increase  the  inheritance  which  we  have  be 
queathed  ;  know,  that,  if  we  excel  you  in  virtue,  such  a  victory  will  be 
to  us  a  mortification,  while  defeat  will  bring  happiness.  It  is  in  this 
way  that  you  may  conquer  us.  Nothing  is  more  shameful  to  a  man, 
than  to  found  his  title  to  esteem,  not  on  his  own  merits,  but  on  the 
fame  of  his  ancestors.  The  glory  of  the  fathers  is  doubtless  to  their 
children  a  most  precious  treasure  ;  but  to  enjoy  it  without  transmitting 
it  to  the  next  generation,  and  without  adding  to  it  yourselves,  this  is 
the  height  of  imbecility.  Following  these  counsels,  when  your  days 
shall  be  finished  on  earth,  you  will  come  to  join  us,  and  we  shall  re 
ceive  you  as  friends  receive  friends  ;  but  if  you  neglect  our  words, 
expect  no  happy  greeting  then  from  us." 

Honor  to  the  memory  of  our  Fathers  !  May  the  turf  lie  gently  on 
their  sacred  graves  !  But  let  us  not  in  words  only,  but  in"  cTcecTs  also, 
testify  our  reverence  for  their  name.  Let  us  imitate  what  in  them 
\v.is  lofty,  pure  and  good  ;  let  us  from  them  learn  to  bear  hardship  and 
privation.  Let  us,  who  now  reap  in  strength  what  they  sowed  in  wenk- 
nessTstudy  to  enhance  the  inheritance  we  have  received.  To  do  this,  we 
must  not  fold  our  hands  in  slumber,  nor  abide  content  with  the  past. 
To  each  generation  is  committed  its  peculiar  task;  nor  does  the  heart, 
which  responds  to  the  call  of  duty,  find  rest  except  in  the  world  to 
come. 

Be  ours,  then,  the  task  which,  in  the  order  of  Providence,  has  been 
cast  upon  us  !  And  what  is  this  task  ?  How  shall  we  best  perform 
the  part  assigned  to  us  ?  What  can  we  do  to  make  our  coming  wel 
come  to  our  fathers  in  the  skies,  and  to  draw  to  our  memory  hereafter 
the  homage  of  a  grateful  posterity?  How  can  we  add  to  the  inhcri- 


342  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

tance  we  have  received  ?  The  answers  to  these  questions  cannot  fafl 
to  interest  all  minds,  particularly  on  this  anniversary  of  the  birth-day 
of  our  country.  Nay,  more  ;  it  becomes  us,  on  this  occasion,  as  pa 
triots  and  citizens,  to  turn  our  thoughts  inward,  as  the  good  man  dedi 
cates  his  birth-day,  to  the  consideration  of  his  character  and  the  mode 
in  which  its  vices  may  be  corrected  and  its  virtues  strengthened. 
Avoiding,  then,  all  exultation  in  the  prosperity  that  has  enriched  our 
land,  and  in  the  extending  influence  of  the  blessings  of  freedom,  let  us 
consider  what  we  can  do  to  elevate  our  character,  to  add  to  the  happi 
ness  of  all,  and  to  attain  to  that  righteousness  which  exalteth  a  nation. 
In  this  spirit,  I  propose  to  inquire  what,  in  our  age  are  the  true  ob 
jects  ~of  national  ambition — what  is  truly  national  glory — national 
honor — what  is  the  true  grandeur  of  nations. 

I  hope  to  rescue  these  terms,  so  powerful  over  the  minds  of  men, 
from  the  mistaken  objects  to  which  they  are  applied,  from  deeds  of  war 
and  the  extension  of  empire,  that  henceforward  they  may  be  attached 
only  to  acts  of  justice  and  humanity. 

The  subject  will  raise  us  to  the  contemplation  of  things  that  are  not 
temporary  or  local  in  their  character ,  but  which  belong  to  all  ages  and 
all  countries  ;  which  are  as  lofty  as  truth,  as  universal  as  humanity. 
But  it  derives  a  peculiar  interest,  at  this  moment,  from  transactions  in 
which  our  country  has  become  involved.  On  the  one  side,  by  an  act  of 
unjust  legislation,  extending  our  power  over  Texas,  we  have  endangered 
peace  with  Mexico  ;  while  on  the  other,  by  a  presumptuous  assertion  of 
a  disputed  claim  to  a  worthless  territory  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
we  have  kindled  anew  on  the  hearth  of  our  mother  country,  the 
smothered  fires  of  hostile  strife.  Mexico  and  England  both  aver  the 
determination  to  vindicate  what  is  called  the  national  honor  ;  and  the 
dread  arbitrament  of  war  is  calmly  contemplated  by  our  Government, 
provided  it  cannot  obtain  what  is  called  an  honorable  peace. 

Far  be  from  our  country  and  our  age  the  sin  and  shame  of  contests 
hateful  in  the  sight  of  God  and  all  good  men,  having  their  origin  in  no 
righteous  though  mistaken  sentiment,  in  no  true  love  of  country,  in  no 
generous  thirst  for  fame,  that  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds,  but 
springing  in  both  cases  from  an  ignorant  and  ignoble  passion  for  new 
,  territories  ;  strengthened  in  one  case,  by  an  unnatural  desire,  in  this 
land  of  boasted  freedom,  to  fasten  by  new  links  the  chains  which 
\  promise  soon  to  fall  from  the  limbs  of  the  unhappy  slave  !  In  such  con- 
;  tests,  God  has  no  attribute  which  can  join  with  us.  Who  believes  that 
the  national  honor  will  be  promoted  by  a  war  with  Mexico  or  England? 
•  What  just  man  would  sacrifice  a  single  human  life,  to  bring  under  our 
rule  both  Texas  and  Oregon  ?  It  was  an  ancient  Roman,  touched,  per 
haps,  by  a  transient  gleam  of  Christian  truth,  who  said,  when  he  turned 
aside  from  a  career  of  Asiatic  conquest,  that  he  would  rather  save  the 
life  of  a  single  citizen  than  become  master  of  all  the  dominions  of 
Mithridates. 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  343 

A  war  with  Mexico  would  be  mean  and  cowardly ;  but  with  England 
it  would  be  at  least  bold,  though  parricidal.  The  heart  sickens  at  the 
murderous  attack  upon  an  enemy,  distracted  by  civil  feuds,  weak  at 
home,  impotent  abroad  ;  but  it  recoils  in  horror  from  the  deadly  shock 
between  children  of  a  common  ancestry,  speaking  the  same  language, 
soothed  in  infancy  by  the  same  words  of  love  and  tenderness,  and 
hardened  into  vigorous  manhood  under  the  bracing  influence  of  insti 
tutions  drawn  from  the  same  ancient  founts  of  freedom.  Curam 
acuebat,  quod  adverstts  Latinos  bellandum  emt,  lingud  morilms",  arworum 
generc,  inslilutis  ante  onmia  militaribus  congrucntes  ;  nrilites  1)^ilitib^^s1 
ccnturionibus  centuriones,  tribimi  tribunis  compares,  collcg<zquc,  iisdem 
piCrsidis,  sizpt!  iisdeni  manipulis  permixti  fuerant. 

In  our  age  there  can  be  no  peace  that  is  not  honorable  ;  there 
can  be  no  war  that  is  not  dishonorable.  The  true  honor  of  a  na 
tion  is  to  be  found  only  in  deeds  of  justice  and  in  the  happiness 
of  its  people,  all  of  which  are  inconsistent  with  war.  In  the  clear  eye 
of  Christian  judgment  vain  are  its  victories  ;  infamous  are  its  spoils. 
He  is  the  true  benefactor  and  alone  worthy  of  honor  who  brings  comfort 
where  before  was  wretchedness  ;  who  dries  the  tear  of  sorrow  ;  wlio 
pours  oil  into  the  wounds  of  the  unfortunate  ;  who  feeds  the  hungry 
and  clothes  the  naked  ;  who  unlooses  the  fetters  of  the  slave  •  who 
does  justice  ;  who  enlightens  the  ignorant  ;  who  enlivens  and  exalts,  by 
his  virtuous  genius,  in  art,  in  literature,  in  science,  the  hours  of  life  ; 
who,  by  words  or  actions,  inspires  a  love  for  God  and  for  man.  This  is 
the  Christian  hero  ;  this  is  the  man  of  honor  in  a  Christian  land.  He 
is  no  benefactor,  nor  deserving  of  honor,  whatever  may  be  his  worldly 
renown,  whose  life  is  passed  in  acts  of  force  ;  who  renounces  the  great 
law  of  Christian  brotherhood  ;  whose  vocation  is  blood  ;  who  triumphs 
in  battle  over  his  fellow-men.  Well  may  old  Sir  Thomas  Browne  ex 
claim,  "  the  world  does  not  know  its  greatest  men  ;"  for  thus  far  it  has 
chiefly  discerned  the  violent  brood  of  battle,  the  armed  men  springing 
up  from  the  dragon1  s  teeth  sown  by  Hate,  and  cared  little  for  the  truly 
good  men,  children  of  Love,  Cromwells  guiltless  of  their  country's 
blood,  whose  steps  on  earth  have  been  as  noiseless  as  an  angel's  wing. 

It  is  not  to  be. disguised  that  these  views  differ  from  the  generally 
received  opinions  of  the  world  down  to  this  day.  The  voice  of  man 
has  been  given  mostly  to  the  praise  of  military  chieftains,  and  the 
honors  of  victory  have  been  chanted  even  by  the  lips  of  woman.  The 
mother,  while  rocking  her  infant  on  her  knees,  has  stamped  on  his 
tender  mind,  at  that  age  more  impressible  than  wax,  the  images  of 
war;  she  has  nursed  his  slumbers  with  its  melodies;  she  has  pleased 
his  waking  hours  with  its  stories;  and  selected  for  his  playthings  the 
plume  and  the  sword.  The  child  is  father  to  the  man;  and  who  can 
weigh  the  influence  of  these  early  impressions  on  the  opinions  of  later 
years?  The  mind  which  trains  the  child  is  like  the  hand  which  com- 
maads  the  end  of  a  long  lever;  a  gentle  effort  at  that  time  suffices  to 
A.  P.— 12. 


344  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

heave  the  enormous  weight  of  succeeding  years.  As  the  boy  a^jyances 
to  youth  he  is  fed,  like  Achilles,  not  only  on  honey  and  milk,  but  on 
bear's  flesh  and  lion's  marrow.  He  draws  the  nutriment  of  his~sOttt 
from  a  literature,  whose  beautiful  fields  have  been  moistened  "by  htrmart 
blood.  Fain  would  I  offer  my  tribute  to  the  father  of..poctry,  stand 
ing; 'with  harp  of  immortal  melody,  on  the  misty  mountain  top  of  dis 
tant  antiquity;  to  all  those  stories  of  courage  and  sacrifice  which  cm- 
blazon  the  annals  of  Greece  and  Rome;  to  the  fulminations  of  Demos 
thenes  and  the  splendors  of  Tully;  to  the  swreet  verse  of  Virgil  and  the 
poetic  prose  of  Livy.  Fain  would  I  offer  my  tribute  to  the  new  liter 
ature,  which  shot  up  in  modern  times  as  a  vigorous  forest  from  the 
burnt  site  of  ancient  woods;  to  the  passionate  song  of  the  Troubadour 
of  France,  and  the  Minnesinger  of  Germany;  to  the  thrilling  ballads 
of  Spain;  and  the  delicate  music  of  the  Italian  lyre.  But  from  all 
these  has  breathed  the  breath  of  war,  that  has  swept  the  heart-strings 
of  innumerable  generations  of  men! 

And  when  the  youth  becomes  a  man,  his  country  invites  his  services 
in  war,  and  holds  before  his  bewildered  imagination  the  highest  prizes 
of  honor.  For  him  is  the  pen  of  the  historian  and  the  verse  of  the 
poet.  His  soul  swells  at  the  thought,  that  he  also  is  a  soldier;  that 
his  name  shall  be  entered  on  the  list  of  those  who  have  borne  arms  in 
the  cause  of  their  country;  and,  perhaps,  he  dreams,  that  he  too  may 
sleep,  like  the  Great  Captain  of  Spain,  with  a  hundred  trophies  over 
his  grave.  But  the  contagion  spreads  among  us,  beyond  those  bands 
on  whom  is  imposed  the  positive  obligation  of  law.  Respectable  citi 
zens  volunteer  to  look  like  soldiers,  and  to  affect  in  dress,  in  arms  and 
deportment,  what  is  called  "  the  pride,  pomp  and  circumstance  of 
glorious  war/'  The  ear-piercing  fife  has  to-day  filled  our  streets,  and 
we  have  come  together,  on  this  anniversary,  by  the  thump  of  drum 
and  the  sound  of  martial  music. 

It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  the  spirit  of  war  still  finds  a  home 
among  us;  nor  that  its  honors  are  still  regarded.  This  fact  may  seem 
to  give  point  to  the  bitter  philosophy  of  Hobbes,  who  held  that  the 
natural  state  of  mankind  was  war,  and  to  sustain  the  exulting  language 
of  the  soldier  in  our  own  day,  who  has  said  :  "War  is  the  condition  of 
this  world.  From  man  to  the  smallest  insect,  all  are  at  strife;  and  the 
glory  of  arms,  which  cannot  be  obtained  without  the  exercise  of  honor, 
fortitude,  courage,  obedience,  modesty  and  temperance,  excites  the 
brave  man's  patriotism,  and  is  a  chastening  correction  of  the  rich 
man's  pride." 

I  now  ask  what  is  war?  Let  me  give  a  short  but  strictly  scientific 
answer.  War  is  a  public,  armed  contest,  between  nations,  in  order 
to  establish  justice  between  them;  as,  for  instance,  to  determine  a  dis 
puted  boundary  line,  or  the  title  to  a  territory.  It  has  been  called  by 
Lord  Bacon  "one  of  the  highest  trials  of  right,  when  princes  and 
states,  that  acknowledge  no  superior  upon  earth,  shall  put  themselves 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  345 

upon  the  justice  of  God  for  the  deciding  of  their  controversies,  by  such 
success  as  it  shall  please  him  to  give  on  either  side." 

This  definition  may  seem,  at  first  view,  to  exclude  what  are  termed 
by  "martial  logic,"  defensive  wars.  But  a  close  consideration  of  the 
subject  will  make  it  apparent  that  no  war  can  arise  among  Christian 
nations,  at  the  present  day,  except  to  determine  an  asserted  right. 
The  wars  usually  and  falsely  called  defensive  are  of  this  character. 
They  are  appeals  for  justice  to  force;  endeavors  to  redress  evil  by 
force.  They  spring  from  the  sentiment  of  vengeance  or  honor.  They 
inflict  evil  for  evil,  and  vainly  essay  to  overcome  evil  by  evil.  The 
wars  that  now  lower  from  Mexico  and  England  are  of  this  character. 
On  the  one  side,  we  assert  a  title  to  Texas  which  is  disputed;  and  on 
the  other  side  a  title  to  Oregon,  which  is  disputed.  Who  can  regard 
the  ordeal  by  battle  in  these  causes  as  a  defensive  war  ?  The  object 
proposed  in  1834  by  war  with  France,  was  to  secure  the  payment  of 
five  millions  of  dollars,  in  other  words,  to  determine,  by  the  arbitra 
ment  of  war,  a  question  of  justice.  It  would  be  madness  to  term  this 
a  case  of  self-defence;  it  has  been  happily  said,  if,  because  a  man  re 
fuses  to  pay  a  just  debt,  I  go  to  his  house  and  beat  him,  that  is  not 
self-defence;  but  such  was  precisely  the  conduct  proposed  to  be 
adopted  by  our  country.  The  avowed  purpose  of  the  war,  declared 
by  the  United  States  against  Great  Britain  in  1812,  was  to  obtain  from 
the  latter  power  an  abandonment  of  her  unrighteous  claim  to  search 
American  vessels.  It  is  a  mockery  to  miscall  such  a  contest  a  defen 
sive  war. 

I  repeat,  therefore,  that  war  is  a  public,  armed  contest,  between  na 
tions,  in  order  to  establish  justice  between  them. 

When  we  have  considered  the  character  of  war;  the  miseries  it  pro 
duces;  and  its  utter  and  shameful  insufficiency,  as  a  means  of  estab 
lishing  justice,  we  may  then  be  able  to  determine,  strictly  and  logically, 
whether  it  must  not  be  ranked  with  crimes  from  which  no  true  honor 
can  spring,  to  individuals  or  nations,  but  rather  condemnation  and 
shame. 

I.  And  first  as  to  the  character  of  war,  or  that  part  of  our  nature  in 
which  it  has  its  origin.  Listen  to  the  voice  of  the  ancient  poet  of 
Boeotian  Ascra: 

This  is  the  law  for  mortals  ordained  by  the  Ruler  of  Heaven  ; 
Fishes  and  Beasts  and  Birds  of  the  air  devour  each  other  ; 
Justice  dwells  not  among  them;  only  to  man  has  he  given 
Justice  the  Highest  and  Best. 

The  first  idea  that  rises  to  the  mind,  in  regarding  war,  is  that  it  is  a 
resort  to  force,  whereby  each  nation  strives  to  overpower  the  other. 
Reason,  and  the  divine  part  of  our  nature,  in  which  alone  we  differ 
from  the  beasts,  in  which  alone  we  approach  the  divinity,  in  which 
alone  are  the  elements  of  justice,  the  professed  object  of  war,  are  de- 


346  AMERICAN   PATRIOTISM. 

throned.  It  is,  in  short,  a  temporary  adoption,  by  men,  of  the  char 
acter  of  wild  beasts,  emulating  their  ferocity,  rejoicing  like  them  in 
blood,  and  seeking,  as  with  a  lion's  paw,  to  hold  an  asserted  right. 
This  character  of  war  is  somewhat  disguised,  in  more  recent  days,  by 
the  sk'll  and  knowledge  which  it  employs;  it  is,  however,  still  the 
same,  made  more  destructive  by  the  genius  and  intellect  which  have 
been  degraded  to  its  servants.  The  early  poets,  in  the  unconscious 
simplicity  of  the  world's  childhood,  make  this  strikingly  apparent. 
All  the  heroes  of  Homer  are  likened  in  their  ra:_-;e  i<>  the  ungovernable 
fury  of  animals  or'things  devoid  of  human  reason  or  human  affection. 
Menelaus  presses  his  way  though  the  crowd,  "like  a  beast."  Sarpe- 
don  was  aroused  against  the  Argives,  "  as  a  lion  against  the  crooked- 
horned  oxen;"  and  afterwards  rashes  forward  "like  a  lion  nourished 
on  the  mountains  for  a  long  time  famished  for  want  of  flesh,  but  whose 
courage  compels  him  to  go  even  to  the  well-guarded  sheep-fold."  The 
great  Telamonian  Ajax  in  one  and  the  same  passage  is  likened  to  "a 
beast,"  "  a  tawny  lion"  and  "an  obstinate  ass;"  and  all  the  Greek 
chiefs,  the  flower  of  the  camp,  are  described  as  ranged  about  Diorned, 
"  like  raw-eating  lions  or  wild  boars  whose  strength  is  irresistible." 
And  Hector,  the  hero  in  whom  cluster  the  highest  virtues  of  polished 
war,  is  called  by  the  characteristic  term,  "  the  tamer  of  horses,"  and 
one  of  his  renowned  feats  in  battle,  indicating  only  brute  strength,  is 
where  he  takes  up  and  hurls  a  stone  which  two  of  the  strongest  men 
could  not  easily  put  into  a  wagon;  and  he  drives  over  dead  bodies  and 
shields,  while  the  axle  is  defiled  by  gore,  and  the  guard  about  the  seat, 
sprinkled  from  the  horse's  hoofs  and  from  the  tires  of  the  wheels; 
and,  in  that  most  admired  passage  of  ancient  literature,  before  return 
ing  his  child,  the  young  Astyanax,  to  the  arms  of  his  wife,  he  invokes 
the  gods  for  a  single  blessing  on  his  head,  that  "he  may  excel  his 
father,  and  bring  home  bloody  spoils,  his  enemy  being  slain,  and  so 
make  glad  the  heart  of  his  mother." 

Illustrations  of  this  nature  might  be  gathered  from  the  early  fields 
of  modern  literature,  as  well  as  from  the  more  ancient,  all  snowing 
the  unconscious  degradation  of  the  soldier,  who,  in  the  pursuit  of  jus 
tice,  renounces  the  human  character  to  assume  that  of  the  beasts. 
Henry  V.,  in  our  own  Shakespeare,  in  the  spirit-stirring  appeal  to  his 
troops,  says — 

When  the  blast  of  war  blows  in  our  ears, 
Then  imitate  the  action  of  the  tiger 

This  is  plain  and  frank,  and  reveals  the  true  character  of  war. 

I  need  not  dwell  on  the  moral  debasement  of  man  that  must  ensue. 
All  the  passions  of  his  nature  are  unleashed  like  so  many  blood 
hounds,  and  suffered  to  rage.  All  the  crimes  which  fill  our  prisons 
stalk  abroad,  plaited  with  the  soldier's  garb,  and  unwhipt  of  justice. 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  347 

Murder,   robbery,   rape,  arson,   theft,   are  the  sports  of  this    fiendish 
Saturnalia,   when 

The  gates  of  mercy  shall  be  all  shut  up 
And  the  fleshed  soldier,  rough  and  hard  of  heart, 
In  the  liberty  of  bloody  hand  shall  range 
With  conscience  wide  as  hell. 

Such  is  the  foul  disfigurement  which  war  produces  in  man;  man,  of 
whom  it  has  been  said,  "  How  noble  in  reason,  how  infinite  in  facul 
ties  !  in  form  and  moving,  how  express  and  admirable  !  in  action,  how 
like  an  angel  !  in  apprehension,  how  like  a  God  !" 

II.  Let  us  now  consider  more  particularly  the  effects  or  conse 
quences  of  this  resort  to  brute  force,  in  the  pursuit  of  justice. 

The  immediate  effect  of  war  is  to  sever  all  relations  of  friendship 
and  commerce  between  the  two  nations  and  every  individual  thereof, 
impressing  upon  each  citizen  or  subject  the  character  of  enemy.  Im 
agine  this  between  England  and  the  United  States.  The  innumerable 
ships  of  the  two  countries,  the  white  doves  of  commerce,  bearing  the 
olive  of  peace,  would  be  driven  from  the  sea,  or  turned  from  their 
proper  purposes  to  be  ministers  of  destruction;  the  threads  of  social 
and  business  intercourse  which  have  become  woven  into  a  thick  web 
would  be  suddenly  snapped  asunder;  friend  could  no  longer  commu 
nicate  with  friend;  the  twenty  thousand  letters,  which  each  fortnight 
are  speeded,  from  this  port  alone,  across  the  sea,  could  no  longer  be 
sent,  and  the  human  affections  and  desires,  of  which  these  are  the 
precious  expression,  would  seek  in  vain  for  utterance.  Tell  me,  you, 
who  have  friends  and  kindred  abroad,  or  who  are  bound  to  foreigners 
by  the  more  worldly  relations  of  commerce,  are  you  prepared  for  this 
rude  separation  ? 

But  this  is  little  compared  with  what  must  follow.  This  is  only  the 
first  portentous  shadow  of  the  disastrous  eclipse,  the  twilight  usher  of 
thick  darkness,  that  is  to  cover  the  whole  heavens,  as  with  a  pall, 
to  be  broken  only  by  the  blazing  lightnings  of  the  battle  and  the 
siege. 

The  horrors  of  these  redden  every  page  of  history;  while,  to  the 
disgrace  of  humanity,  the  historian  has  rarely  applied  to  their  brutal 
authors  the  condemnation  they  deserve.  A  popular  writer,  in  our  own 
day,  dazzled  by  those  false  ideas  of  greatness  at  which  reason  and  Chris 
tianity  blush,  does  not  hesitate  to  dwell  on  them  with  terms  of  rapture  and 
eulogy.  At  Tarragona,  above  six  thousand  human  beings,  almost  all 
defenceless,  men  and  women,  grey  hairs  and  infant  innocence,  at 
tractive  youth  and  wrinkled  age,  were  butchered  by  the  infuriated 
troops  in  one  night,  and  the  morning  sun  rose  upon  a  city  whose 
streets  and  houses  were  inundated  with  blood.  And  yet  this  is  called 
"a  glorious  exploit."  This  was  a  conquest  by  the  French.  At  a 
later  day  Ciudad  Rodrigo  was  stormed  by  the  British,  when  there  en 
sued  in  the  license  of  victory,  a  frightful  scene  of  plunder  and  vio- 


348  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

lence,  while  shouts  and  screams  on  all  sides  fearfully  intermingled 
with  the  groans  of  the  wounded.  The  churches  were  desecrated,  the 
cellars  of  wine  and  spirits  were  pillaged;  fire  was  wantonly  applied  to 
different  parts  of  the  city;  and  brutal  intoxication  spread  in  every  di 
rection.  It  was  only  when  the  drunken  men  dropped  from  excess,  or 
fell  asleep,  that  any  degree  of  order  was  restored,  and  yet  the  storm 
ing  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo  is  pronounced  "one  of  the  most  brilliant  ex 
ploits  of  the  British  army."  This  exploit  was  followed  by  the  storm 
ing  of  Badajoz,  in  which  the  same  scenes  were  enacted  again  with 
added  atrocities.  Let  the  story  be  told  in  the  words  of  a  partial  his 
torian:  "Shameless  rapacity,  brutal  intemperance,  savage  lust,  cruel 
ty  and  murder,  shrieks  and  piteous  lamentations,  groans,  shouts,  im 
precations,  the  hissing  of  fire  bursting  from  the  houses,  the  crashing 
of  doors  and  windows,  and  the  report  of  muskets  used  in  violence, 
resounded  for  two  days  and  nights  in  the  streets  of  Badajoz  !  On  the 
third,  when  the  city  was  sacked,  when  the  soldiers  were  exhausted  by 
their  excesses,  the  tumult  rather  subsided  than  was  quelled  !  The 
wounded  were  then  looked  to,  the  dead  disposed  of." 

The  same  terrible  war  affords  another  instance  of  the  horrors  of  a 
siege,  which  cries  to  Heaven  for  judgment.  For  weeks  before  the 
surrender  of  Saragossa,  the  deaths  were  from  four  to  five  hundred 
daily;  the  living  were  unable  to  bury  the  dead,  and  thousands  of  car 
casses,  scattered  about  the  streets  and  court-yards,  or  piled  in  heaps 
at  the  doors  of  churches,  were  left  to  dissolve  in  their  own  corruption 
or  to  be  licked  up  by  the  flames  of  the  burning  houses.  The  city  was 
shaken  to  its  foundation  by  sixteen  thousand  shells  thrown  during  the 
bombardment,  and  the  explosion  of  forty-five  thousand  pounds  of 
powder  in  the  mines,  while  the  bones  of  forty  thousand  persons  of 
every  age  and  both  sexes  bore  dreadful  testimony  to  the  unutterable 
atrocity  of  war. 

These  might  be  supposed  to  be  pictures  from  the  age  of  Alaric, 
Scourge  of  God,  or  of  Attlla,  whose  boast  was,  that  the  grass  did  not 
grow  where  his  horse  had  set  his  foot;  but  no;  they  belong  to  our  own 
times.  They  are  portions  of  the  wonderful  but  wicked  career  of  him, 
who  stands  out  as  the  foremost  representative  of  worldly  grandeur. 
The  heart  aches,  as  we  follow  him  and  his  marshals  from  field  to  field 
of  glory.  At  Albuera,  in  Spain,  we  see  the  horrid  piles  of  carcasses, 
while  all  the  night  the  rain  pours  down,  and  the  river  and  the  hills 
and  the  woods  on  each  side,  resound  with  the  dismal  clamors  and 
groans  of  dying  men.  At  Salamanca,  long  after  the  battle,  we  behold 
the  ground  still  blanched  by  the  skeletons  of  those  who  fell,  and 
strewn  with  the  fragments  of  casques  and  cuirasses.  We  follow  in 
the  dismal  traces  of  his  Russian  campaign;  at  Valentina  we  see  the 
soldiers  black  with  powder,  their  bayonets  bent  with  the  violence  of 
the  encounter;  the  earth  ploughed  with  cannon  shot,  the  trees  torn 
and  mutilated,  the  field  covered  with  broken  carriages,  wounded 
horses,  and  mangled  bodies,  while  disease,  sad  attendant  on  military 


CHARLES  SUMXER.  349 

suffering,  sweeps  thousands  from  the  great  hospitals  of  the  army,  and 
the  multitude  of  amputated  limbs,  which  there  is  not  time  to  destroy, 
accumulate  in  bloody  heaps,  filling  the  air  with  corruption.  What 
tongue,  what  pen,  can  describe  the  horrors  of  the  field  of  Borodino, 
where  between  the  rise  and  set  of  a  single  sun,  more  than  one  hun 
dred  thousand  of  our  fellow-men,  equalling  in  number  the  population 
of  this  whole  city,  sank  to  the  earth  dead  or  wounded  ?  Fifty  days 
after  the  battle,  no  less  than  twenty  thousand  are  found  lying  where 
they  have  fallen,  and  the  whole  plain  is  strewn  with  half-buried  car 
casses  of  men  an.d  horses,  intermingled  with  garments  dyed  in  blood, 
and  bones  gnawed  by  dogs  and  vultures.  Who  can  follow  the  French 
army,  in  their  dismal  retreat,  avoiding  the  pursuing  spear  of  the  Cos 
sack,  only  to  sink  under  the  sharper  frost  and  ice,  in  a  temperature 
below  zero,  on  foot,  without  a  shelter  for  their  bodies,  and  famishing 
on  horse-flesh  and  a  miserable  compound  of  rye  and  snow-water  ? 
Still  later  we  behold  him  with  a  fresh  array,  contending  against  new 
forces  under  the  walls  of  Dresden;  and  as  the  Emperor  rides  over  the 
field  of  battle,  having  supped  with  the  king  of  Saxony  the  night  be 
fore,  ghastly  traces  of  the  contest  of  the  preceding  day  are  to  be  seen 
on  all  sides;  out  of  the  newly  made  graves  hands  and  arms  are  pro 
jecting,  stark  and  stiff  above  the  earth.  And  shortly  afterwards, 
when  shelter  is  needed  for  the  troops,  direction  is  given  to  occupy  the 
hospitals  for  the  insane,  with  the  order,  "  Turn  out  the  mad." 

But  why  follow  furthe'r  in  this  career  Of  blood  ?  There  is,  however, 
one  other  picture  of  the  atrocious,  though  natural  consequences  of  war, 
occurring  almost  within  our  own  day,  that  I  would  not  omit.  Let  me 
bring  to  your  mind  Genoa,  called  the  Suburb,  City  of  Palaces,  dear  to 
the  memory  of  American  childhood  as  the  birthplace  of  Christopher 
Columbus,  and  one  of  the  spots  first  enlightened  by  the  morning 
beams  of  civilization,  whose  merchants  were  princes,  and  whose  rich 
argosies,  in  those  early  days,  introduced  to  Europe  the  choicest  pro 
ducts  of  the  East,  the  linen  of  Egypt,  the  spices  of  Arabia,  and  the 
silks  of  Sarmacand.  She  still  sits  in  queenly  pride,  as  she  did  then, 
her  mural  crown  studded  with  towers,  her  churches  rich  with  marble 
floors  and  rarest  pictures,  her  palaces  of  ancient  doges  and  admirals 
yet  spared  by  the  hand  of  time,  her  close  streets,  thronged  by  one 
hundred  thousand  inhabitants,  at  the  feet  of  the  maritime  Alps,  as 
they  descend  to  the  blue  and  tideless  waters  of  the  Mediterranean  sea, 
leaning  with  her  back  against  their  strong  mountain  sides,  overshad 
owed  by  the  foliage  of  the  fig  tree  and  the  olive,  while  the  orange  and 
lemon  fill  with  their  perfume  the  air  where  reigns  perpetual  spring. 
Who  can  contemplate  such  a  city  without  delight  ?  Who  can  listen  to 
the  story  of  her  sorrows  without  a  pang  ? 

In  the  autumn  of  1799,  the  armies  of  the  French  Republic,  which  had 
dominated  over  Italy,  were  driven  from  their  conquests, and  compelled 
with  shrunk  forces,  under  Massena,  to  seek  shelter  within  the  walls  of 
Genoa.  After  various  efforts  by  the  Austrian  General  on  the  land,  aid- 


35°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM.      . 

ed  by  a  bombardmrent  from  the  British  fleet  in  the  harbor,  to  force  the 
strong  defences  by  assault,  the  city  is  invested  by  a  strict  blockade. 
All  communication  with?  the  country  is  cut  off  on  the  one  side,  while 
the  harbor  is  closed  by  the  ever-wakeful  British  watch-dogs  of  war. 
Within  the  beleaguered  and  unfortunate  city,  are  the  peaceful  inhab 
itants,  more  than  those  of  Boston  in  number,  besides  the  French  troops. 
Provisions  soon  become  scarce,  scarcity  sharpens  into  want,  till  fell  fa 
mine, bringing  blindness  and  madness  in  her  train,  rages  like  an  Erinnys. 
Picture  to  yourself  this  large  population,  not  pouring  out  their  lives  in 
the  exulting  rush  of  battle,  but  wasting  at  noon-day,  the  daughter  by  the 
side  of  the  mother,  the  husband  by  the  side  of  the  wife.  When  grain 
and  rice  fail,  flax-seed,  millet,  cocoas  and  almonds  are  ground  by  hand- 
mills  into  flour,  and  even  bran,  baked  with  honey,  is  eaten,  not  to  sat 
isfy,  but  to  deaden  hunger.  During  the  siege,  but  before  the  last  ex 
tremities,  a  pound  of  horse-flesh  is  sold  for  32  cents;  a  pound  of  bran 
for  30  cents;  a  pound  of  flour  for  $1.75.  A  single  bean  is  sold  for  4 
cents,  and  a  biscuit  of  three  ounces  for  $2.25,  and  none  are  finally  to 
be  had.  The  miserable  soldiers,  after  devouring  all  the  horses  in  the 
city,  are  reduced  to  the  degradation  of  feeding  on  dogs,  cats,  rats  and 
worms,  which  are  eagerly  hunted  out  in  the  cellars  and  common  sew 
ers.  Happy  were  now,  exclaims  an  Italian  historian,  not  those  who 
lived,  but  those  who  died  !  The  day  is  dreary  from  hunger;  the  night 
more  dreary  still  from  hunger  accompanied  by  delirious  fancies.  Re 
course  is  now  had  to  herbs;  monk's  rhubarb,  sorrel,  mallows,  wild 
succory.  People  of  every  condition,  women  of  noble  birth  and  beauty, 
seek  on  the  slope  of  the  mountain  enclosed  within  the  defences,  those 
aliments  which  nature  destined  solely  for  the  beasts.  A  little  cheese 
and  a  few  vegetables  are  all  that  can  be  afforded  to  the  sick  and 
wounded,  those  sacred  stipendiaries  upon  human  charity.  Men  and 
women,  in  the  last  anguish  of  despair,  now  fill  the  air  with  their  groans 
and  shrieks;  some  in  spasms,  convulsions  and  contortions,  gasping 
their  last  breath  on  the  unpitying  stones  of  the  streets;  alas  !  not  more 
unpitying  than  man.  Children,  whom  a  dying  mother's  arms  had 
ceased  to  protect,  the  orphans  of  an  hour,  with  piercing  cries,  seek  in 
vain  the  compassion  of  the  passing  stranger;  but  none  pity  or  aid 
them.  The  sweet  fountains  of  sympathy  are  all  closed  by  the  selfish 
ness  of  individual  distress.  In  the  general  agony,  the  more  impetu 
ous  rush  out  of  the  gates,  and  impale  themselves  on  the  Austrian  bay 
onets,  while  others  precipitate  themselves  into  the  sea.  Others  still 
(pardon  the  dire  recital !)  are  driven  to  eat  their  shoes  and  devour  the 
leather  of  their  pouches,  and  the  horror  of  human  flesh  has  so  far 
abated  that  numbers  feed  like  cannibals  on  the  bodies  of  the  dead. 

At  this  stage  the  French  general  capitulated,  claiming  and  receiving 
what  are  called  "the  honors  of  war;"  but  not  before  twenty  thous 
and  innocent  persons,  old  and  young,  women  and  children,  having  no 
part  or  interest  in  the  war,  had  died  the  most  horrible  of  deaths.  The 


LHAKLES  SUMNER.  351 

Austrian  flag  floated  over  the  captured  Genoa  but  a  brief  span  of  time; 
for  Bonaparte  had  already  descended,  like  an  eagle,  from  the  Alps, 
and  in  less  than  a  fortnight  afterwards,  on  the  vast  plains  of  Maren- 
go,  shattered,  as  with  an  iron  mace,  the  Austrian  empire  in  Italy. 

But  wasted  lands,  ruined  and  famished  cities,  and  slaughtered  armies 
are  only  a  part  of  "the  purple  testament  of  bleeding  war."  Every 
soldier  is  connected,  as  all  of  you,  by  dear  lies  of  kindred,  love  and 
friendship.  He  has  been  sternly  summoned  from  the  warm  embraces 
of  family.  To  him  there  is,  perhaps,  an  aged  mother,  who  has  fondly 
hoped  to  lean  her  decaying  frame  upon  his  more  youthful  form;  per 
haps  a.  wife,  whose  life  has  been  just  entwined  inseparably  with  his, 
now  condemned  to  wasting  despair;  perhaps  brothers,  sisters.  As  he 
falls  on  the  field  of  battle,  must  not  all  these  rush  with  his  blood?  But 
who  can  measure  the  distress  that  radiates  as  from  a  bloody  sun,  pen 
etrating  innumerable  homes  ?  Who  can  give  the  gauge  and  dimen 
sions  of  this  incalculable  sorrow  ?  Tell  me,  ye  who  have  felt  the  bit 
terness  of  parting  with  dear  friends  and  kindred,  whom  you  have 
watched  tenderly  till  the  last  golden  sands  have  run  out,  and  the  great 
hour-glass  is  turned,  what  is  the  measure  of  your  anguish  ?  Your 
friend  has  departed,  soothed  by  kindness  and  in  the  arms  of  love;  the 
soldier  gasps  out  his  life,  with  no  friend  near,  while  the  scowl  of  hate 
darkens  all  that  he  beholds,  darkens  his  own  departing  soul.  Who 
can  forget  the  anguish  that  fills  the  bosom  and  crazes  the  brain  of 
Leonora,  in  the  matchless  ballad  of  Burger,  who  seeks  in  vain  among 
the  returning  squadrons  for  her  lover  left  dead  on  Prague's  ensan 
guined  plain  ?  But  every  field  of  blood  has  many  Leonoras.  From  a, 
poet  of  antiquity,  we  draw  a  vivid  picture  of  homes  made  desolate 
by  the  murders  of  battle. 

But  through  the  bounds  of  Grecia's  land, 

Who  sent  her  sons  for  Troy  to  part, 

See  mourning,  with  much  suffering  heart, 

On  each  man's  threshold  stand. 

On  each  sad  hearth  in  Grecia's  land. 

Well  may  her  soul  with  grief  be  rent ; 

She  well  remembers  whom  she  sent, 

She  sees  them  not  return  ; 

Instead  of  men,  to  each  man's  home, 

Urns  and  ashes  only  come, 

And  the  armor  which  they  wore  ; 

Sad  relics  to  their  native  shore. 

For  Mars,  the  barterer  of  the  lifeless  clay, 

Who  sells  for  gold  the  slain, 

And  holds  the  scale  in  battle's  doubtful  day, 

High  balanced  o'er  the  plain, 

From  Ilium's  walls  for  men  returns 

Ashes  and  sepulchral  urns  ; 

Ashes  wet  with  many  a  tear, 

Sad  relics  of  the  fiery  bier. 

Round  the  full  urns  the  general  groan 

Goes,  as  each  their  kindred  own. 


35 *  AM  ERIC  AX  PATRIOTISM. 

One  they  mourn  in  battle  strong", 
And  one,  that  'mid  the  armed  throng 
He  sunk  in  glory's  slaughtering  tide, 
And  for  another's  consort  died. 
****** 

Others  they  mourn  whose  monuments  stand 
By  Ilium's  walls  on  foreign  strand  ; 
Where  they  fell  in  beauty's  bloom, 
There  they  lie  in  hated  tomb  ; 
Sunk  beneath  the  massv  mound, 
In  eternal  chambers  bound. 

III.  From  this  dreary  picture  of  the  miseries  of  war,  I  turn  to 
another  branch  of  the  subject. 

War  is  utterly  ineffectual  to  secure  or  advance  the  object  at  which  it 
aims.  The  misery  which  it  excites,  contributes  to  no  end,  helps  to 
establish  no  right,  and  therefore,  in  no  respect  determines  justice  be 
tween  the  contending  nations. 

The  fruitlessness  and  vanity  of  war  appear  in  the  results  of  the 
great  wars  by  which  the  world  has  been  lacerated.  After  long  strug 
gles,  in  which  each  nation  has  inflicted  and  received  incalculable 
injury,  peace  has  been  gladly  obtained  on  the  basis  of  the  condition 
of  things  before  the  war. — Status  ante  Bellum.  Let  me  refer  for  an 
example  to  our  last  war  with  Great  Britain,  the  professed  object  of 
which  was  to  obtain  from  the  latter  power  a  renunciation  of  her  claim 
to  impress  our  seamen.  The  greatest  number  of  American  seamen 
ever  officially  alleged  to  be  compulsorily  serving  in  the  British  navy 
was  about  eight  hundred.  To  overturn  this  injustice,  the  whole 
country  was  doomed,  for  more  than  three  years  to  the  accursed  blight 
of  war.  Our  commerce  was  driven  from  the  seas;  the  resources  of 
the  land  were  drained  by  taxation;  villages  on  the  Canadian  frontier 
were  laid  in  ashes:  the  metropolis  of  the  republic  was  captured, 
while  gaunt  distress  raged  every  where  within  our  borders.  Weary 
with  this  rude  trial,  our  Government  appointed  Commissioners  to 
treat  for  peace,  under  these  instructions  :  "  Your  first  duty  will  be  to 
conclude  peace  with  Great  Britain,  and  you  are  authorized  to  do  it,  in 
case  you  obtain  a  satisfactory  stipulation  against  impressment,  one 
which  shall  secure  under  our  flag  protection  to  the  crew.  If  this  en 
croachment  of  Great  Britain  is  not  provided  against,  the  United  f 
States  have  appealed  to  arms  in  vain."  Afterwards,  despairing  oi 
extorting  from  Great  Britain  a  relinquishment  of  the  unrighteous 
claim,  and  foreseeing  only  an  accumulation  of  calamities  from  an  in 
veterate  prosecution  of  the  war,  our  Government  directed  their  nego 
tiators,  in  concluding  a  treaty  of  peace,  "to  omit  any  stipulation 
on  the  subject  of  impressment."  The  instructions  were  obeyed  and 
the  treaty  that  once  more  restored  to  us  the  blessings  of  peace, 
which  we  had  rashly  cast  away,  and  which  the  country  hailed  with  an 
intoxication  of  joy,  contained  no  allusion  to  the  subject  of  impress 
ment,  nor  did  it  provide  for  the  surrender  of  a  single  American  sailor 


CHARLES  SUMMER.  353 

detained  in  the  service  of  the  British  navy,  and  thus,  by  the  confes 
sion  of  our  own  Government,  "The  United  States  had  appealed  to 
arms  in  vain." 

All  this  is  the  natural  result  of  an  appeal  to  war  in  order  to  establish 
justice.  Justice  implies  the  exercise  of  the  judgment  in  the  determi- 
antion  of  right.  Now  war  not  only  supersedes  the  judgment,  but 
delivers  over  the  results  to  superiority  of  force,  or  to  chance. 

Who  can  measure  before-hand  the  currents  of  the  heady  fight  ?  In 
common  language  we  speak  of  the  chances  of  battle;  and  soldiers, 
whose  lives  are  devoted  to  this  harsh  calling,  yet  speak  of  it  as  a 
game.  The  great  captain  of  our  age,  who  seemed  to  chain  victory  to 
his  chariot  wheels,  in  a  formal  address  to  his  officers,  on  entering 
Russia,  says:  "In  war,  fortune  has  an  equal  share  with  ability  in  pro 
curing  success."  The  mighty  victory  of  Marengo,  the  accident  of  an 
accident,  wrested  unexpectedly  at  the  close  of  the  day  from  a  foe 
who  at  an  earlier  hour  was  successful,  must  have  taught  him  the  un 
certainty  of  war.  Afterward,  in  the  bitterness  of  his  spirit,  when  his 
immense  forces  had  been  shivered,  and  his  triumphant  eagles  driven 
back  with  broken  wings,  he  exclaimed,  in  that  remarkable  conversa 
tion  recorded  by  the  Abbe  de  Pradt:  "Well !  this  is  war.  High  in  the 
morning, — low  enough  at  night.  From  a  triumph  to  a  fall  is  often 
but  a  step."  The  military  historian  of  the  Peninsular  campaign, 
says:  "  Fortune  always  asserts  her  supremacy  in  war,  and  often  from 
a  slight  mistake,  such  disastrous  consequences  flow,  that  in  every  age 
and  in  every  nation,  the  uncertainty  of  wars  has  been  proverbial;"  and 
again,  in  another  place,  in  considering  the  conduct  of  Wellington,  he 
says:  "A  few  hours'  delay,  an  accident,  a  turn  of  fortune,  and  he 
"Would  have  been  foiled  !  Ay  !  but  this  is  war,  always  dangerous  and 
uncertain,  an  ever-rolling  wheel  and  armed  with  scythes."  And  can 
intelligent  man  look  for  justice  to  an  ever-rolling  wheel  armed  with 
scythes  ? 

The  character  of  war,  as  dependent  upon  chance,  might  be  illus 
trated  from  every  page  of  history.  It  is  less  discerned,  perhaps,  in 
the  conflict  of  large  masses,  than  of  individuals,  though  equally 
present  in  both.  How  capriciously  the  wheel  turned  when  the  for 
tunes  of  Rome  were  staked  on  the  combat  between  the  Horatii  and 
Curatii,  and  who,  at  one  time,  could  have  argued  that  the  single 
Horatius,  with  his  two  slain  brothers  on  the  field,  would  have  over 
powered  the  three  living  enemies? 

But  the  most  interesting  illustration  is  to  be  found  in  the  history  of 
the  private  wars,  and  particularly  of  the  judicial  combat,  or  of  trial 
by  battle,  in  the  dark  ages.  The  object  proposed  in  these  cases  was 
precisely  the  professed  object  of  modern  war,  the  determination  of 
justice.  Did  time  permit,  it  would  be  interesting  and  instructive  to 
trace  the  curious  analogies  between  this  early  ordeal  by  battle,  child 
cf  superstition  and  brute  force,  and  the  great  ordeal  of  war.  Like 


354  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

the  other  ordeals,  by  burning  ploughshares,  by  holding  hot  iron,  by 
dipping  the  hand  in  hot  water,  or  hot  oil,  they  are  both  a  presumptu 
ous  appeal  to  Providence,  under  an  apprehension  and  hope  that 
Heaven  will  give  the  victory  to  him  who  has  the  right.  The  mon 
strous  usage  of  trial  by  battle  prevailed  in  the  early  modern  centuries 
throughout  Europe;  it  was  a  part  of  the  common  law  of  England;  and 
though  it  fell  into  desuetude,  overruled  by  the  advancing  spirit  of 
civilization,  still,  to  the  disgrace  of  the  English  law,  it  was  not  legis 
latively  abolished,  until  in  1817  the  right  to  it  had  been  distinctly 
claimed  in  Westminster  Hall.  Abraham  Thornton,  on  appeal  against 
him  for  murder,  when  brought  into  court,  pleaded  as  follows  :  "  Not 
guilty,  and  I  am  ready  to  defend  the  same  by  my  body  ;"  and  there 
upon  taking  off  his  glove,  he  threw  it  upon  the  floor  of  the  court. 
The  appellant  did  not  choose  to  submit  to  this  trial,  and  abandoned 
his  proceedings.  In  the  next  session  of  Parliament,  trial  by  battle 
was  abolished  in  England.  The  attorney  general,  on  introducing  the 
bill  for  this  purpose  remarked,  that,  "if  the  party  had  persevered  he 
had  no  doubt  the  legislature  would  have  felt  it  their  imperious  duty 
to  interfere  and  pass  an  ex  post  facto  law,  to  prevent  so  degrading  a 
spectacle  from  taking  place." 

To  an  early  monarch  of  France  belongs  the  honor  of  first  interposing 
the  royal  authority,  for  the  entire  suppression  within  his  jurisdiction  of 
this  impious  usage,  so  universally  adopted,  so  dear  to  the  nobility 
and  so  profoundly  rooted  in  the  institutions  of  the  feudal  age.  And 
here  let  me  pause  with  reverence,  as  I  mention  the  name  of  St.  Louis, 
a  prince,  whose  unenlightened  errors  may  find  easy  condemnation  in 
our  age  of  larger  toleration  and  wider  knowledge,  but  whose  firm 
and  upright  soul,  whose  exalted  sense  of  justice,  whose  fatherly  re 
gard  for  the  happiness  of  his  people,  whose  respect  for  the  rights  of 
others,  whose  conscience  void  of  offence  before  God  and  man,  make 
him  foremost  among  Christian  rulers,  the  highest  example  for  a 
Christian  prince  or  a  Christian  people.  He  was  of  conscience  all- 
compact,  subjecting  all  that  he  did  to  the  single  and  exclusive  test  of 
moral  rectitude,  disregarding  all  considerations  of  worldly  advant 
age,  all  fear  of  worldly  consequences. 

His  soul,    thus    tremblingly    sensitive   to    questions    of   right,  was 
shocked  by  the  judicial   combat.     In  his  sight,  it  was  a  sin  thus  to 
tempt  God,  by  demanding  of  him  a  miracle,  whenever  judgment  was 
to  be   pronounced.     In    .1260  he  assembled  a   parliament,   where  he 
issued  an  ordinance,  to  take  effect  throughout  the  royal  dominion,  in 
which  he  expressly   says  :   "  We    forbid   to    all    persons   throughout 
our  dominions   the  trial  by  battle;  and,  instead  of  battles,  we  estab 
lish  proofs  by  witnesses;  and  we  do  not  take  away  the  other  good  and 
loyal  proofs  which  have  been  used  in  lay  courts  to  this  day.  ..... 

And  these  battles  we  abolish  in  our  dominion  for  ever." 

Such  were  the  restraint?  on  the  royal  aiuhority,  that  this  ordinance 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  355 

was  confined  in  its  operation  to  the  demesnes  of  the  king;  and  did 
not  extend  to  those  of  the  barons  and  feudatories  of  the  realm.  But 
where  the  power  of  St.  Louis  did  not  reach,  there  he  labored  by  his 
example,  his  influence  and  his  express  intercession.  He  treated  with 
many  of  the  great  vassals  of  the  crown,  and  induced  them  to  renounce 
this  unnatural  usage.  Though  for  many  years  later  France  continued 
in  some  parts  to  be  vexed  by  it,  still  its  overthrow  commenced  wiih 
the  ordinance  of  St.  Louis. 

Honor  and  blessings  attend  the  name  of  this  truly  Christian  king; 
who  submitted  all  his  actions  to  the  Heaven-descended  sentiment  of 
duty;  who  began  a  long  and  illustrious  reign  by  renouncing  and  re 
storing  a  portion  of  the  conquests  of  his  predecessor,  saying  to  those 
about  him,  whose  souls  did  not  ascend  to  the  height  of  his  morality, 
"  I  know  that  the  predecessors  of  the  king  of  England  have  lost  by 
the  right  of  conquest  the  land  which  I  hold;  and  the  land  which  I  give 
him,  I  do  not  give  because  I  am  bound  to  him  or  his  heirs,  but  to  put 
love  between  my  children  and  his  children,  who  are  cousin-germans; 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  what  I  thus  give,  I  employ  to  good  purpose  '" 
Honor  to  him,  who  never  grasped  by  force  or  cunning  any  new  acqui 
sition:  who  never  sought  advantage  from  the  turmoils  and  dissensions 
of  his  neighbors,  but  studied  to  allay  them;  who,  first  of  Christian 
princes,  rebuked  the  spirit  of  war,  saying  to  those  who  would  have 
him  profit  by  the  dissensions  of  his  neighbors,  "Blessed  are  the 
peace-makers;"  who  abolished  trial  by  battle  throughout  his  dominions, 
who  aimed  to  do  justice  to  all  his  people,  and  to  all  neighbors, 
and  in  the  extremity  of  his  last  illness,  on  the  sickening  sands  of 
Tunis,  among  the  bequests  of  his  spirit,  enjoined  on  his  son  and 
successor,  "  in  maintaining  justice,  to  be  inflexible  and  loyal,  neither 
turning  to  the  right  hand  nor  to  the  left  !" 

The  history  of  the  trial  by  battle  will  illustrate  and  bring  home  to 
your  minds  the  chances  of  war,  and  the  consequent  folly  and  wicked 
ness  of  submitting  any  question  to  its  arbitrament.  As  we  revert  to 
those  early  periods  in  which  it  prevailed,  our  minds  are  impressed 
by  the  barbarism  which  we  behold;  we  recoil,  with  horror,  from  the 
awful  subjection  of  justice  to  brute  force;  from  the  impious  profana 
tion  of  the  character  of  God  in  deeming  him  present  in  these  outrages: 
from  the  moral  degradation  out  of  which  they  sprang,  and  which  they 
perpetuated,  we  involve  ourselves  in  our  self-complacent  virtue,  and 
thank  God  that  we  are  not  as  these  men,  that  ours  is,  indeed  an  age  of 
light,  while  theirs  was  an  age  of  darkness  ! 

But  are  we  aware  that  this  monstrous  and  impious  usage,  which 
our  enlightened  reason  so  justly  condemns  in  the  cases  of  individuals 
is  openly  avowed  by  our  own  country,  and  by  the  other  countries  of 
the  earth,  as  a  proper  mode  of  determining  justice  between  them  ? 
Be  upon  our  heads  and  upon  our  age  the  judgment  of  barbarism  which 
we  pronounce  upon  those  that  have  gone  before  !  At  this  moment. 


35 6  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

in  this  period  of  light,  when  the  noon-day  sun  of  civilization  seems,  to 
the  contented  souls  of  many,  to  be  standing  still  in  the  heavens,  as 
upon  Gibeon,  the  relations  between  nations  are  governed  by  the  same 
rules  of  barbarous  brutal  force,  which  once  prevailed  between  indi 
viduals.  The  dark  ages  have  not  passed  away;  Erebus  and  black 
Night,  born  of  Chaos,  still  brood  over  the  earth;  nor  shall  we  hail  the 
clear  day,  until  the  mighty  hearts  of  the  nations  shall  be  touched  as 
those  of  children,  and  the  whole  earth,  individuals  and  nations  alike, 
shall  acknowledge  one  and  the  same  rule  of  right. 

Who  has  told  you,  fond  man  !  to  regard  that  as  a  glory  when  per 
formed  by  a  nation,  which  is  condemned  as  a  crime  and  a  barbarism, 
when  committed  by  an  individual  ?     In  what  vain  conceit  of  wisdom 
And  virtue   do    you   find    this    incongruous   morality  ?      Where    is    it 
/declared,  that  God,  who  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  is  a  respecter  of 
/multitudes  ?     Whence   do   you  draw  these  partial  laws  of  a  powerful 
i  and  impartial  God?     Man  is  immortal;  but  states  are  mortal.      He  has 
I  a  higher  destiny  than    states.     Shall  states  be  less  amenable  to  the 
7  great  moral  laws?    Each  individual  is  an  atom  of  the  mass.     Must  not 
|  the  mass  be  like  the   individuals  of  which  it  is  composed?     Shall  the 
;   mass  do  what  individuals  may  not  do  ?     No.     The  same  moral  laws 
which  govern   individuals  govern  masses,  as  the  same  laws  in  nature 
prevail  over  large  and  small,  controlling  the  fall  of  an  apple  and  the 
orbits  of  the  planets.      It  was  the  beautiful  discovery  of  Newton,  that 
gravity  is  a  universal  property  of  matter,  a  law  obeyed  by  every  parti 
cle  in  reference  to  every  other  particle,  and  connecting  the  celestial 
mechanism  with  terrestrial   phenomena.     So  the  rule  of  right,  which 
binds  the  single  individual,  binds  two  or  three  when  gathered  together 
— binds  conventions  and  congregations  of  men — binds  villages,  towns 
and  cities — binds  states,  nations  and  empires — clasps  the  whole  human 
family  in  its  seven-fold  embrace;  nay  more, 

Beyond  the  flaming  bounds  of  place  and  time, 
The  living  throne,  the  sapphire  blaze, 

it  binds  the  angels  of  heaven,  the  Seraphim,  full  of  love,  the  Cheru 
bim,  full  of  knowledge;  above  all,  it  binds,  in  self-imposed  bonds,  a 
just  and  omnipotent  God.  It  is  of  this,  and  not  of  any  earthly  law, 
that  Hooker  speaks  in  that  magnificent  period  which  sounds  like  an 
anthem;  "  Of  law  no  less  can  be  said,  that  her  seat  is  the  bosom  of 
God,  her  voice  the  harmony  of  the  world;  all  things  in  heaven  and 
earth  do  her  homage,  the  very  least  as  feeling  her  care,  the  greatest 
as  not  exempted  from  her  power;  both  angels  and  men,  and  creatures 
of  what  condition  soever,  though  each  in  different  sort  and  manner, 
yet  all  with  uniform  consent  admiring  her  as  the  mother  of  their  peace 
and  joy." 

We  are  struck  with  horror  and  our  hair  stands  on  end,   at   the  re 
port  of  a  single  murder;  we  think  of  the  soul  that  has  been  hurried  to 


CHARLES  SVMNER.  357 

its  final  account;  we  seek  the  murderer;  and  the  law  puts  forth  all  its 
energies  to  secure  his  punishment.  Viewed  in  the  clear  light  of  truth, 
what  are  war  and  battle  but  organized  murder;  murder  of  malice 
aforethought;  in  cold  blood;  through  the  operation  of  an  extensive 
machinery  of  crime;  with  innumerable  hands;  at  incalculable  cost  of 
money;  through  subtle  contrivances  of  cunning  and  skill;  or  by  the 
savage  brutal  assault?  Was  not  the  Scythian  right,  when  he  said  to 
Alexander,  "  Thou  boastest,  that  the  only  design  of  thy  marches  is  to 
extirpate  robbers;  thou  thyself  art  the  greatest  robber  in  the  world." 
Among  us  one  class  of  sea-robbers  is  hanged  as  pirates;  another  is 
hailed  with  acclamation: 

Hie  crucem  sceleris  pretium  tulit,  hie  diadema. 

It  was  amidst  the  thunders  which  made  Sinai  tremble,  that  God 
declared,  "Thou  shalt  not  kill;-"  and  the  voice  of  these  thunders,  with 
this  commandment,  has  been  prolonged  to  our  own  day  in  the  echoes 
of  Christian  churches.  What  mortal  shall  restrain  the  application  of 
these  words?  Who  on  earth  is  empowered  to  vary  or  abridge  the  com 
mandments  of  God  ?  Who  shall  presume  to  declare,  that  this  injunc 
tion  was  directed,  not  to  nations,  but  to  individuals  only;  not  to  many 
but  to  one  only;  that  one  man  may  not  kill,  but  that  many  may;  that 
it  is  forbidden  to  each  individual  to  destroy  the  life  of  a  single  human 
being,  but  that  it  is  not  forbidden  to  a  nation  to  cut  off  by  the  sword  a 
whole  people? 

When  shall  the  St.  Louis  of  the  nations  arise  ?  the  Christian  ruler  or 
Christian  people  who  shall  proclaim  to  the  whole  earth,  that  hence 
forward  forever  the  great  trial  by  battle  shall  cease;  that  it  is  the  duty 
and  policy  of  nations  to  establish  love  between  each  other;  and  in  all 
respects,  at  all  times,  towards  all  persons,  as  well  their  own  people, 
as  the  people  of  other  lands,  to  be  governed  by  the  sacred  rules  of 
right,  as  between  man  and  man!  May  God  speed  the  coming  of  that 
day  ! 

I  have  already  alluded,  in  the  early  part  of  my  remarks,  to  some  of 
the  obstacles  to  be  encountered  by  the  advocate  of  peace.  One  of 
these  is  the  warlike  tone  of  the  literature  by  which  our  minds  and 
opinions  are  formed.  The  world  has  supped  so  full  with  battles,  that 
all  its  inner  modes  of  thought,  and  many  of  its  rules  of  conduct  seem 
to  be  incarnadined  with  blood;  as  the  bones  of  swine,  fed  on  madder, 
are  said  to  become  red.  But  I  now  pass  this  by,  though  a  most  fruit 
ful  theme,  and  hasten  to  other  topics.  I  propose  to  consider  in  suc 
cession,  very  briefly,  some  of  those  influences  and  prejudices,  which 
are  most  powerful  in  keeping  alive  the  delusion  of  war. 

i.  One  of  the  most  important  of  these  is  the  prejudice  to  a  certain 
extent  in  its  favor  founded  on  the  belief  in  its  necessity.  The  con 
sciences  of  all  good  men  condemn  it  as  a  crime,  a  sin;  even  the  soldier, 
whose  profession  it  is,  confesses  that  it  is  to  be  resorted  to  only  in  the 


3  5  8  A  ME  RICA  N  PA  TRIO  TISAL 

last  necessity.  But  a  benevolent  and  omnipotent  God  cannot  render 
it  necessary  to  commit  a  crime.  When  war  is  called  a  necessity,  it  is 
meant,  of  course,  that  its  object  cannot  be  gained  in  any  other  way. 
Now  I  think  that  it  has  already  appeared  with  distinctness,  approach 
ing  demonstration,  that  the  professed  object  of  war,  which  is  justice 
between  nations,  is  in  no  respect  promoted  by  war;  that  force  is  not 
justice,  nor  in  any  way  conducive  to  justice;  that  the  eagles  of  victory 
can  be  only  the  emblems  of  successful  force  and  not  of  established 
right.  Justice  can  be  obtained  only  by  the  exercise  of  the  reason  and 
judgment;  but  these  are  silent  in  the  din  of  arms.  Justice  is  without 
passion;  but  war  lets  loose  all  the  worst  passions  of  our  nature,  while 
"high  arbiter  Chance  more  embroils  the  fray."  The  age  has  passed 
in  which  a  nation,  within  the  enchanted  circle  of  civilization,  will. make 
war  upon  its  neighbor,  for  any  professed  purpose  of  booty  or  ven 
geance.  It  does  "  nought  in  hate,  but  all  in  honor."  There  are  pro 
fessions  even  of  tenderness  which  mingle  with  the  first  mutterings  of 
the  dismal  strife.  Each  of  the  two  governments,  as  if  conscience- 
struck  at  the  abyss  into  which  it  is  about  to  plunge,  seeks  to  fix  on 
the  other  the  charge  of  hostile  aggression,  and  to  assume  to  itself  the 
ground  of  defending  some  right;  some  stolen  Texas;  some  distant, 
worthless  Oregon.  Like  Pontius  Pilate,  it  vainly  washes  its  hands  of 
innocent  blood,  and  straightway  allows  a  crime  at  which  the  whole 
heavens  are  darkened,  and  two  kindred  Countries  are  severed,  as  the 
veil  of  the  Temple  was  rent  in  twain. 

The  various  modes  which  have  been  proposed  for  the  determina 
tion  of  disputes  between  nations  are  Negotiation,  Arbitration,  Medi 
tation,  and  a  Congress  of  Nations,  all  of  them  practicable  and  calcula 
ted  to  secure  peaceful  justice.  Let  it  be  said,  then,  that  war  is  a 
necessity,  and  may  our  country  aim  at  the  true  glory  of  taking  the 
lead  in  the  recognition  of  these  as  the  only  proper  modes  of  determin 
ing  justice  between  nations !  Such  a  glory,  unlike  the  earthly  fame 
of  battles,  shall  be  immortal  as  the  stars,  dropping  perpetual  light 
upon  the  souls  of  men! 

2.  Another  prejudice  in  favor  of  war  is  founded  on  the  practice  of 
nations,  past  and  present.  There  is  no  crime  or  enormity  hi  morals 
which  may  not  find  the  support  of  human  example,  often  on  a  most 
extended  scale.  But  it  is  not  to  be  urged  in  our  day  that  we  are  to 
look  for  a  standard  of  duty  in  the  conduct  of  vain,  mistaken,  fallible 
man.  It  is  not  in  the  power  of  man,  by  any  subtle  alchemy,  to  trans 
mute  wrong  into  right.  Because  war  is  according  to  the  practice  of 
the  world,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  right.  For  ages  the  world  wor 
shipped  false  gods;  but  these  gods  were  not  the  less  false  because  all 
bowed  before  them.  At  this  moment  the  larger  portion  of  mankind  are 
heathen;  but  heathenism  is  not  true.  It  was  once  the  practice  of  na 
tions  to  slaughter  prisoners  of  war;  but  even  the  spirit  of  war  recoils 
now  from  this  bloody  sacrifice.  In  Sparta,  theft,  instead  of  being  exe- 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  359 

crated  as  a  crime,  was  dignified  into  an  art  and  an  accomplishment,  and 
as  such  admitted  into  the  system  of  youthful  education;  and  even  this 
debasing  practice,  established  by  local  feeling,  is  enlightened,  like 
war,  by  an  instance  of  unconquerable  firmness,  which  is  a  barbaric 
counterfeit  of  virtue.  The  Spartan  youth,  who  allowed  the  fox  con 
cealed  under  his  robe  to  eat  into  his  heart,  is  an  example  of  mistaken 
fortitude,  not  unlike  that  which  we  are  asked  to  admire  in  the  soldier. 
Other  illustrations  of  this  character  crowd  upon  the  mind;  but  I  will 
not  dwell  upon  them.  We  turn  with  disgust  from  Spartan  cruelty  and 
the  wolves  of  Taygetus;  from  the  awful  cannibalism  of  the  Feegee 
Islands;  from  the  profane  rites  of  innumerable  savages;  from  the 
crushing  Juggernaut;  from  the  Hindoo  widow  lighting  her  funeral 
pyre;  from  the  Indian  dancing  at  the  stake.  But  had  not  all  these,  in 
their  respective  places  and  days,  like  war,  the  sanction  of  established 
usage  ? 

But  it  is  often  said,  "  Let  us  not  be  wiser  than  our  fathers."  Rather 
let  us  try  to  excel  our  fathers  in  wisdom.  Let  us  imitate  what  in  them 
\vas  good,  but  let  us  not  bind  ourselves,  as  in  the  chains  of  Fate,  by 
their  imperfect  example.  There  are  principles  which  are  higher  than 
human  examples.  Examples  are  to  be  followed  when  they  accord 
with  the  suggestions  of  duty.  But  he  is  unwise  and  wicked  who  at 
tempts  to  lean  upon  these  rather  than  upon  those  truths,  which,  like 
the  Everlasting  Arm,  cannot  fail! 

In  all  modesty,  be  it  said,  we  have  lived  to  little  purpose  if  we  are 
not  wiser  than  the  generations  that  have  gone  before  us.  It  is  the 
grand  distinction  of  man  that  he  is  a  progressive  being;  that  his 
reason  at  the  present  day  is  not  merely  the  reason  of  a  single  human 
being,  but  that  of  the  whole  human  race,  in  all  ages  from  which 
knowledge  has  descended,  in  all  lands  from  which  it  has  been  borne 
away.  We  are  the  heirs  to  an  inheritance  of  knowledge  which  has 
been  accumulating  from  generation  to  generation.  The  child  is  now 
taught  at  his  mother's  knee  the  orbits  of  the  heavenly  bodies, 

"  Where  worlds  on  worlds  compose  one  Universe." 

the  nature  of  this  globe  ;  the  character  of  the  tribes  of  men  by  which 
it  is  covered,  and  the  geography  of  nations,  all  of  which  were  far  be 
yond  the  ken  of  the  most  learned  of  other  days.  It  is,  therefore, 
true,  as  has  been  said,  that  antiquity  is  the  real  infancy  of  man  ;  it  is 
then  that  he  is  immature,  ignorant,  wayward,  childish,  selfish,  finding 
his  chief  happiness  in  pleasures  of  sense,  all  unconscious  of  the  higher 
delights  of  knowledge  and  of  love.  The  animal  part  of  his  nature 
reigns  over  his  soul,  and  he  is  driven  on  by  the  gross  impulses  of 
force.  He  seeks  contests,  war  and  blood.  But  we  are  advanced 
from  the  childhood  of  man;  reason  and  the  kindlier  virtues  of  age, 
repudiating  and  abhoring  force,  now  bear  sway.  We  are  the  true 
AncientSv  The  single  lock  on  the  battered  forehead  of  Old  Time  is 


3<>o  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

thinner  now  than  when  our  fathers  attempted  to  grasp  it ;  the  hour 
glass  has  been  turned  often  since  ;  the  scythe  is  heavier  laden  with 
the  work  of  death. 

Let  us  cease,  then,  to  look  for  a  lamp  to  our  feet  in  the  feeble  tapers 
that  glimmer  in  the  sepulchres  of  the  past.  Rather  let  us  hail  those 
ever-burning  lights  above,  in  whose  beams  is  the  brightness  of  noon 
day! 

3.  There  is  a  topic  to  which  I  allude  with  diffidence  ;  but  in  the 
spirit  of  frankness.  It  is  the  influence  which  war,  though  condemned 
by  Christ,  has  derived  from  the  Christian  Church.  When  Constan- 
tine,  on  one  of  his  marches  at  the  head  of  his  army,  beheld  the  lumi 
nous  trophy  of  the  cross  in  the  sky  right  above  the  meridian  sun, 
inscribed  with  these  words,  "  By  this  conquer,"  had  his  soul  been 
penetrated  by  the  true  spirit  of  Him  whose  precious  symbol  it  was,  he 
would  have  found  in  it  no  inspiration  to  the  spear  and  the  sword.  He 
would  have  received  the  lesson  of  self-sacrifice,  as  from  the  lips  of  the 
Saviour,  and  would  have  learned  that  it  was  not  by  earthly  weapons 
that  any  true  victory  was  to  be  won.  The  pride  of  conquest  would 
have  been  rebuked,  and  the  bauble  sceptre  of  Empire  would  have  fal 
len  from  his  hands.  "  By  this  conquer  ;"  that  is,  by  patience,  suffer 
ing,  forgiveness  of  evil,  by  all  those  virtues  of  which  the  cross  is  the 
affecting  token,  conquer  ;  and  the  victory  shall  be  greater  than  any  in 
the  annals  of  Roman  conquest ;  it  may  not  find  a  place  in  the  records 
of  man  ;  but  it  shall  appear  in  the  register  of  everlasting  life. 

The  Christian  Church,  after  the  first  centuries  of  its  existence, 
failed  to  discern  the  peculiar  spiritual  beauty  of  the  faith  which  it  pro 
fessed.  Like  Constantine,  it  found  new  incentives  to  war  in  the  re 
ligion  of  peace  ;  and  such  has  been  its  character,  let  it  be  said  fear 
lessly,  even  to  our  own  day.  The  Pope  of  Rome,  the  asserted  head 
of  the  church,  the  Vicegerent  of  Christ  on  earth,  whose  seal  is  a  fish 
erman,  on  whose  banner  is  a  lamb  before  the  holy  cross,  assumed 
the  command  of  armies,  often  mingling  the  thunders  of  battle  with 
those  of  the  Vatican.  The  dagger  which  projected  from  the  sacred 
vestments  of  the  Archbishop  de  Retz,  as  he  appeared  in  the  streets  of 
Paris,  was  called  by  the  people,  "The  Archbishop's  Prayer  Book." 
We  read  of  mitred  prelates  in  armor  of  proof,  and  seem  still  to  catch 
the  jingle  of  the  golden  spurs  of  the  bishops  in  the  streets  of  Cologne. 
The  sword  of  knighthood  was  consecrated  by  the  church  ;  and  priests 
were  often  the  expert  masters  in  military  exercises.  I  have  seen  at 
the  gates  of  the  Papal  Palace  in  Rome  a  constant  guard  of  Swiss  sol 
diers;  I  have  seen,  too,  in  our  own  streets,  a  show  as  incongruous  and 
as  inconsistent,  a  pastor  of  a  Christian  church  parading  as  the  chaplain 
of  a  military  array!  Ay!  more  than  this  ;  some  of  us  have  heard, 
within  a  few  short  weeks,  in  a  Christian  pulpit,  from  the  lips  of  an 
eminent  Christian  divine,  a  sermon  in  which  we  are  encouraged  to 
serve  the  God  of  Battles,  and,  as  citizen  soldiers,  to  fight  for  peace,' 


CHARLES  SUMXER.  361 

a  sentiment  which  can  find  no  support  in  the  religion  of  Him  who 
has  expressly  enjoined,  when  one  cheek  is  smitten  to  turn  the  other, 
and  to  which  we  listen  with  pain  and  mortification  from  the  lips  of 
one  who  has  voluntarily  become  a  minister  of  Christian  truth  ;  alas! 
in  his  mind,  inferior  to  that  of  the  heathen,  who  declared  that  he  pre 
ferred  the  unjustest  peace  to  the  justest  war. 

And  who  is  the  God  of  Battles  ?  It  is  Mars  ;  man-slaying,  blood- 
polluted,  city-smiting  Mars'  Him  we  cannot  adore.  Itisnothewho 
binds  the  sweet  influences  of  the  Pleiades,  and  looses  the  bands  of 
Orion  ;  who  causes  the  sun  to  shine  on  the  just  and  the  unjust ;  who 
tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb  ;  who  distils  the  oil  of  gladness 
upon  every  upright  heart ;  the  fountain  of  mercy  and  goodness  ;  the 
God  of  justice  and  love.  The  God  of  Battles  is  not  the  God  of 
Christians  ;  to  him  can  ascend  none  of  the  prayers  of  Christian 
thanksgiving  ;  for  him  there  can  be  no  words  of  worship  in  Christian 
temples  ;  no  swelling  anthem  to  peal  the  note  of  praise. 

There  is  now  floating  in  this  harbor  a  ship  of  the  line  of  our  coun 
try.  Many  of  you  have,  perhaps,  pressed  its  deck,  and  observed  with 
admiration  the  completeness  which  prevails  in  all  its  parts;  its  lithe 
masts  and  complex  net-work  of  ropes;  its  thick  wooden  walls,  within 
which  are  more  than  the  soldiers  of  Ulysses;  its  strong  defences,  and 
its  numerous  dread  and  rude-throated  engines  of  war.  There  each 
Sabbath,  amidst  this  armament  of  blood,  while  the  wave  comes 
gently  plashing  against  the  frowning  sides,  from  a  pulpit  supported 
by  a  cannon,  or  by  the  side  of  a  cannon,  in  repose  now,  but  ready  to 
awake  its  dormant  thunder,  charged  with  death,  a  Christian  preacher 
addresses  the  officers  and  crew'  May  his  instructions  carry  strength 
and  succor  to  their  souls!  But  he  cannot  pronounce  in  such  a  place, 
those  highest  words  of  the  Master  he  professes,  '  Blessed  are  the 
peace-makers;"  "  Love  your  enemies;"  "  Render  not  evil  for  evil." 
Like  Macbeth's  "  Amen,"  they  must  stick  in  his  throat. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  this  strange  and  unblessed  conjunction  of 
the  clergy  with  war,  has  had  no  little  influence  in  blinding  the  world 
to  the  truth  now  beginning  to  be  recognized,  that  Christianity  forbids 
war  in  all  cases. 

Individual  interests  are  mixed  up  with  prevailing  errors,  and  are 
concerned  in  maintaining  them  to  such  an  extent,  that  it  is  not  sur 
prising  that  military  men  yield  reluctantly  to  this  truth.  They  are 
naturally  in  this  matter,  like  lawyers,  according  to  Voltaire,  "  the  con 
servators  of  ancient  barbarous  usages;"  but  that  these  usages  should 
obtain  countenance  in  the  Christian  church  is  one  of  those  anomalies, 
which  make  us  feel  the  weakness  of  our  nature  and  the  elevation  of 
Christian  truth.  It  is  important  to  observe,  as  an  unanswerable  fact 
of  history,  that  for  some  time  after  the  Apostles,  while  the  lamp  of 
Christianity  burnt  pure  and  bright,  not  only  the  Fathers  of  the  church 
held  it  unlawful  for  Christians  to  bear  arms,  but  those  who  came 


362  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

within  its  pale  abstained  from  the  use  of  arms,  although  at  the  cost 
of  their  lives.  Marcellus  the  Centurion,  threw  down  his  military  belt 
at  the  head  of  the  legion,  and  in  the  face  of  the  standards  declared 
with  a  loud  voice,  that  he  would  no  longer  serve  in  the  army,  for  he 
had  become  a  Christian;  and  many  others  followed  his  example.  It 
was  not  until  Christianity  became  corrupted,  that  its  followers  became 
soldiers,  and  its  priests  learned  to  minister  at  the  altar  of  the  God  of 
battles. 

Thee  to  defend  the  Moloch  priest  prefers 

The  prayer  of  hate,  and  bellows  to  the  herd 

That  Deity,  accomplice  Deity, 

In  the  fierce  jealousy  of  waked  wrath 

Will  go  forth  with  our  armies  and  our  fleets 

To  scatter  the  red  ruin  on  their  foes  ! 

O  blasphemy  !  to  mingle  fiendish  deeds 

With  blessedness ! 

A  motion  has  been  brought  forward  in  Congress,  to  dispense 
with  the  services  of  chaplains  in  the  army  and  navy,  mainly  on  ac 
count  of  the  incompatibility  between  the  principles  of  the  Gospel  and 
the  practice  of  war.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  what  God  has  placed  so 
far  asunder  may  no  longer  be  joined  together  by  man.  If  chaplains 
are  to  be  employed,  it  should  be  to  preach  the  religion  they  profess  as 
to  the  heathen,  and  not  to  offer  incense  to  the  idol  of  war. 

When  will  Christian  ministers  look  for  their  faith,"  not  to  the  ideas, 
opinions  and  practices  of  the  people  by  whom  they  are  surrounded, 
but  to  the  written  words  of  the  texts  from  which  they  preach  ?  It  has 
been  said  of  a  monarch  of  England  that  he  "  read  Gospel  truth  in 
Anna  Koleyn's  eyes."  Not  less  hyperbolical  and  impossible  is  their 
discernment  who  can  find  in  the  flashing  bayonet,  any  token  of  peace, 
any  illumination  of  Christian  love.  That  truly  great  man,  the  be 
loved  Channing,  whose  spirit  speaks  to  us  from  no  sceptered  urn,  but 
from  that  sweet  grassy  bed  at  Mount  Auburn,  says:  "  When  I  think 
of  duelling  and  war  in  the  Christian  world,  and  then  of  the  superiority 
to  the  world  and  the  unbounded  love  and  forbearance  which  charac 
terize  our  religion,  I  am  struck  with  the  little  progress  which  Chris 
tianity  has  as  yet  made." 

One  of  the  beautiful  pictures,  adorning  the  dome  of  a  church  in 
Rome,  by  that  master  of  art,  whose  immortal  colors  breathe  as  with 
the  voice  of  a  poet,  the  divine  Raffaelle,  represents  Mars,  in  the  atti 
tude  of  war,  with  a  drawn  sword  uplifted  and  ready  to  strike,  while  an 
unarmed  angel  from  behind,  with  gentle  but  irresistible  force,  arrests 
and  holds  the  descending  arm.  Such  is  the  true  image  of  Christian 
duty;  nor  can  I  readily  perceive  the  difference  in  principle  between 
those  ministers  of  the  Gospel,  who  themselves  gird  on  the  sword,  as  in 
the  olden  time,  and  those  others,  who,  unarmed  and  in  customary  suit  of 
solemn  black,  lend  the  sanction  of  their  presence  to  the  martial  array, 
or  to  any  form  of  preparation  for  war.  The  drummer,  who  pleaded 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  363 

that  he  did  not  fight,  was  held  more  responsible  for  the  battle  than 
the  mere  soldier;  for  it  was  the  sound  of  his  drum  that  inflamed  the 
flagging  courage  of  the  troops. 

4.  From  the  prejudices  engendered  by  the  church,  I  pass  to  the 
prejudices  engendered  by  the  army  itself;  prejudices  having  their  im 
mediate  origin  more  particularly  in  military  life,  but  unfortunately 
diffusing  themselves,  in  widening  though  less  apparent  circles; 
throughout  the  community.  I  allude  directly  to  what  is  called  the 
point  of  honor,  early  child  of  chivalry,  the  living  representative  in 
our  day  of  an  age  of  barbarism.  It  is  difficult  to  define  what  is  so 
evanescent,  so  impalpable,  so  chimerical,  so  unreal;  and  yet  which 
exercises  such  power  over  many  men,  and  controls  the  relations  of 
states.  As  a  little  water,  which  has  fallen  into  the  crevice  of  a  rock, 
under  the  congelation  of  winter,  swells  till  it  burst  the  thick  and  stony 
fibres;  so  a  word,  or  a  slender  act,  dropping  into  the  heart  of  man, 
under  the  hardening  influence  of  this  pernicious  sentiment,  dilates  till 
it  rends  in  pieces  the  sacred  depository  of  human  affections,  while 
hate  and  the  demon  strife,  no  longer  restrained,  are  let  loose  abroad. 
The  musing  Hamlet  saw  the  strange  and  unnatural  power  of  this  sen 
timent,  when  his  soul  pictured  to  his  contemplations 


—  the  army  of  such  mass  and  charge, 
Led  by  a  delicate  and  tender  prince 
Exposing  what  is  mortal  and  unsure 
To  all  that  fortune,  death  and  danger,  dare 
Even  for  an  egg-shell ; 

and  when  he  says,  with  a  point  which  has  given  to  this  sentiment  its 
strongest  and  most  popular  expression, 

Rightly  to  be  great 

Is  not  to  stir  without  great  argument; 
But  greatly  to  find  quarrel  in  a  straw 
When  honor's  at  the  stake. 

And  when  is  honor  at  stake  ?  This  question  opens  again  the  views 
with  which  I  commenced,  and  with  which  I  hope  to  close  this  dis 
course.  Honor  can  only  be  at  stake,  where  justice  and  happiness  are 
at  stake;  it  can  never  depend  on  an  egg-shell,  or  a  straw;  it  can  never 
depend  on  an  impotent  word  of  anger  or  folly,  not  even  if  that  word 
be  followed  by  a  blow.  In  fine,  true  honor  is  to  be  found  in  the  high 
est  moral  and  intellectual  excellence,  in  the  dignity  of  the  human 
soul,  in  its  nearest  approach  to  those  qualities  which  we  reverence  as 
the  attributes  of  God.  Our  community  frowns  with  indignation  upon 
the  profaneness  of  the  duel,  which  has  its  rise  in  this  irrational  point 
of  honor.  But  are  they  aware  that  they  themselves  indulge  the  senti 
ment,  on  a  gigantic  scale,  when  they  recognize  what  is  called  the 
honor  of  the  country,  as  a  proper  ground  for  war  ?  We  have  already 
seen  that  justice  is  in  no  respect  promoted  by  war?  It  true  honor 
promoted  where  justice  is  not  ? 


364  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

But  the  very  word  honor,  as  used  by  the  world,  does  not  express 
any  elevated  sentiment.  How  infinitely  below  the  sentiment  of  duty! 
It  is  a  word  of  easy  virtue,  that  has  been  prostituted  to  the  most  op 
posite  characters  and  transactions.  From  the  field  of  Pavia,  where 
France  suffered  one  of  the  greatest  reverses  in  her  annals,  Francis 
writes  to  his  mother:  "  all  is  lost  except  honor!"  At  a  later  day,  the 
renowned  cook,  the  grand  Vatel,  in  a  paroxysm  of  grief  and  mortifica 
tion  at  the  failure  of  two  dishes  expected  on  the  table,  exclaimed, 
"  I  have  lost  my  honor."  Montesquieu,  whose  writings  are  a  con 
stellation  of  epigrams,  places  it  in  direct  contrast  with  virtue.  He 
represents  what  he  calls  the  prejudice  of  honor  as  the  animating  prin 
ciple  of  monarchy,  while  virtue  is  that  of  a  republic,  saying  that  in 
well  governed  monarchies  almost  everybody  will  be  a  good  citizen, 
but  it  will  be  rare  to  meet  with  a  really  good  man.  By  an  instinct 
that  points  to  the  truth,  we  do  not  apply  this  term  to  the  high  col 
umnar  virtues  which  sustain  and  decorate  life,  to  parental  affection,  to 
justice,  to  the  attributes  of  God.  We  do  not  speak  of  an  honorable 
father,  an  honorable  mother,  an  honorable  judge,  an  honorable  angel, 
an  honorable  God.  In  such  sacred  connections  we  feel,  beyond  the 
force  of  any  argument,  the  vulgar  and  debasing  character  of  the  senti 
ment  to  which  it  refers. 

The  degrading  rule  of  honor  is  founded  in  the  supposed  necessity  of 
resenting  by  force,  a  supposed  injury,  whether  by  word  or  act.  But 
suppose  such  an  injury  is  received,  sullying,  as  is  falsely  imagined, 
the  character;  is  it  wiped  away  by  a  resort  to  force,  by  descending  to 
the  brutal  level  of  its  author  ?  "  Could  I  have  wiped  your  blood  from 
my  conscience  as  easily  as  I  can  this  insult  from  my  face,"  said  a 
Marshal  of  France,  greater  on  this  occasion  than  on  any  field  of  fame, 
"  I  would  have  laid  you  dead  at  my  feet."  It  is  Plato,  reporting  the 
angelic  wisdom  of  Socrates,  who  declares  in  one  of  those  beautiful 
dialogues,  which  shine  with  stellar  light  across  the  ages,  that  it  is  more 
shameful  to  do  a  wrong  than  to  receive  a  wrong.  And  this  benign 
sentiment  commends  itself,  alike  to  the  Christian,  who  is  told  to  ren 
der  good  for  evil,  and  to  the  universal  heart  of  man.  But  who  that 
confesses  its  truth,  can  vindicate  a  resort  to  force,  for  the  sake  of 
honor  ?  Better  far  to  receive  the  blow  that  a  false  morality  has 
thought  degrading,  than  that  it  should  be  revenged  by  force.  Better 
that  a  nation  should  submit  to  what  is  wrong,  rather  than  vainly  seek 
to  maintain  its  honor  by  the  great  crime  of  war. 

It  seems  that  in  ancient  Athens,  as  in  unchristianized  Christian 
lands,  there  were  sophists,  who  urged  that  to  suffer  was  unbecoming 
a  man,  and  would  draw  down  upon  him  incalculable  evils.  The  fol 
lowing  passage  will  show  the  manner  in  which  the  moral  cowardice  of 
these  persons  of  little  faith  was  rebuked  by  him,  whom  the  Gods  pro 
nounced  wisest  of  men:  "  These  things  being  so,  let  us  inquire  what 
it  is  you  reproach  me  with;  whether  it  is  well  said,  or  not,  that  I,  for- 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  365 

sooth,  am  not  able  to  assist  either  myself,  or  any  of  my  friends  or  my 
relations,  or  to  save  them«from  the  greatest  dangers;  but  that,  like  the 
outlaws,  I  am  at  the  mercy  of  any  one,  who  may  choose  to  smite  me 
on  the  temple — and  this  was  the  strong  point  in  your  argument — or  to 
take  away  my  property,  or  to  drive  me  out  of  the  city,  or  (to  take 
the  extreme  case)  to  kill  me;  now,  according  to  your  argument,  to  be 
so  situated  is  the  most  shameful  thing  of  all.  But  my  view  is, — a 
view  expressed  many  times  already,  but  there  is  no  objection  to  its 
being  stated  again: — my  view,  I  say,  is,  O  Callicles,  that  to  be  struck 
unjustly  on  the  temple  is  not  most  shameful,  nor  to  have  my  body 
mutilated,  nor  my  purse  cut;  but  to  strike  me  and  mine  unjustly,  and 
to  mutilate  me  and  to  cut  my  purse  is  more  shameful  and  worse;  and 
stealing  too,  and  enslaving,  and  housebreaking,  and  in  general  doing 
any  wrong  whatever  to  me  and  mine  is  more  shameful  and  worse  for 
him  who  does  the  wrong,  than  for  me  who  suffer  it.  These  things, 
thus  established  in  the  former  arguments,  as  I  maintain,  are  secured 
and  bound,  even  if  the  expression  be  somewhat  too  rustical,  with  iron 
and  adamantine  arguments,  and  unless  you,  or  some  one  more  vigor 
ous  than  you,  can  break  them,  it  is  impossible  for  any  one,  speaking 
otherwise  than  I  now  speak,  to  speak  well:  since,  for  my  part,  I  al 
ways  have  the  same  thing  to  say,  that  I  know  not  how  these  things 
are,  but  that  of  all  whom  I  have  ever  discoursed  with  as  now,  not  one 
is  able  to  say  otherwise  without  being  ridiculous."  Such  is  the  wis 
dom  of  Socrates. 

But  the  modern  point  of  honor  does  not  find  a  place  in  warlike  an 
tiquity.  Themistocles  at  Salamis  did  not  send  a  cartel  to  the  Spartan 
commander,  \vhen  threatened  by  a  blow.  "  Strike,  but  hear,"  was 
the  response  of  that  firm  nature,  which  felt  that  true  honor  was  to  be 
gained  only  in  the  performance  of  duty.  It  was  in  the  depths  of 
modern  barbarism,  in  the  age  of  chivalry,  that  this  sentiment  shot  up 
in  the  wildest  and  most  exuberant  fancies;  not  a  step  was  taken  with 
out  reference  to  it;  no  act  was  done  which  had  not  some  point  tend 
ing  to  "the  bewitching  duel,"  and  every  stage  in  the  combat,  from 
the  ceremonies  of  its  beginning  to  its  deadly  close,  were  measured  by 
this  fantastic  law.  The  Chevalier  Bayard,  the  cynosure  of  chivalry, 
the  knight  without  fear  and  without  reproach,  in  a  contest  with  the 
Spaniard  Don  Alonzo  de  Soto  Mayor,  by  a  feint  struck  him  such  a 
blow  in  the  throat,  that  despite  the  gorget,  the  weapon  penetrated 
four  fingers  deep.  The  wounded  Spaniard  grasped  his  adversary, 
and  struggling  with  him,  they  both  rolled  on  the  ground,  when  Bay 
ard,  drawing  his  dagger,  and  thrusting  its  point  in  the  nostrils  of  the 
Spaniard,  exclaimed,  "  Senor  Alonzo,  surrender,  or  you  are  a  dead 
man!"  A  speech  which  appeared  superfluous,  as  Don  Diego  de  Guig- 
nones,  his  second,  exclaimed,  "Senor  Bayard,  he  is  dead;  you  have 
conquered."  Bayard,  says  the  chronicler,  would  have  given  one  hun 
dred  thousand  crowns  to  spare  his  life;  but,  he  now  fell  upon  his 


366  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

knees,  kissed  the  ground  three  times  and  then  dragged  his  dead  enemy 
out  of  the  carnp,  saying  to  the  second  of  hi*  fallen  foe,  "Senor  Don 
Diego,  have  I  done  enough  ?"  To  which  the  other  piteously  replied, 
"Too  much,  Senor,  for  the  honor  of  Spain!"  when  Bayard  very  gen 
erously  presented  him  with  the  corpse,  although  it  was  his  right,  by 
the  laws  of  honor,  to  do  whatever  he  thought  proper  with  it;  an  act 
which  is  highly  commended  by  Brantome,  who  thinks  it  difficult  to 
say  which  did  him  most  honor — not  having  ignominiously  dragged  the 
body  like  the  carcass  of  a  dog  by  a  leg  out  of  the  field,  or  having  con 
descended  to  fight  while  laboring  under  an  ague! 

If  such  a  transaction  conferred  honor  on  the  brightest  son  of  chiv 
alry,  we  may  understand  therefrom  something  of  the  real  character  of 
that  age,  the  departure  of  which  has  been  lamented  with  such  touch 
ing  but  inappropriate  eloquence.  Do  not  condescend  to  draw  a  great 
rule  of  conduct  from  such  a  period.  Let  the  point  of  honor  stay  with 
the  daggers,  the  swords  and  the  weapons  of  combat,  by  which  it  was 
guarded;  let  it  appear  only  with  its  inseparable  companions,  the 
bowie-knife,  and  the  pistol  ! 

Be  ours  a  standard  of  conduct  derived,  not  from  the  degradation  of 
our  nature,  though  it  affects  the  semblance  of  sensibility  and  refine 
ment,  but  having  its  sources  in  the  loftiest  attributes  of  man,  in  truth, 
in  justice,  in  duty;  and  may  this  standard,  which  governs  our  rela 
tions  to  each  other,  be  recognized  amongst  the  nations!  When  shall 
we  behold  the  dawning  of  that  happy  day,  harbinger  of  infinite  happi 
ness  beyond,  in  which  nations  shall  feel  that  it  is  better  to  receive  a 
wrong  than  to  do  a  wrong. 

Apply  this  principle  to  our  relations  with  England  at  this  moment. 
Suppose  that  proud  monarchy,  refusing  all  submission  to  negotia 
tion  or  arbitration,  should  absorb  the  whole  territory  of  Oregon  into 
her  own  overgrown  dominions,  and  add,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Colum 
bia  River,  a  new  morning  drum-beat  to  the  national  airs  with  which 
she  has  encircled  the  earth,  who,  then,  is  in  the  attitude  of  the  truest 
honor,  England,  who  has  appropriated,  by  an  unjust  act,  what  is  not 
her  own,  or  the  United  States,  the  victim  of  the  injustice  ? 

5.  There  is  still  another  reason  which  stimulates  war,  and  interferes 
with  the  natural  attractions  of  peace;  I  refer  to  a  selfish  and  exagge 
rated  love  of  country,  leading  to  its  physical  aggrandizement,  and  the 
strengthening  of  its  institutions  at  the  expense  of  other  countries.  Our 
minds,  nursed  by  the  literature  of  antiquity,  have  imbibed  the  narrow 
.'  sentiment  of  heathen  patriotism.  Exclusive  love  for  the  land  of  birth 
was  a  part  of  the  religion  of  Greece  and  Rome.  It  is  an  indication  of 
the  lowness  of  their  moral  nature,  that  this  sentiment  was  so  exclusive, 
and  so  material  in  its  character.  The  Oracle  directed  the  returning 
Roman  to  kiss  his  mother,  and  he  kissed  the  Mother  Earth.  Aga 
memnon,  on  regaining  his  home  after  a  perilous  separation  of  more 


CHARLES   SUMNER.  367 

than  ten  years  at  the  siege  of  Troy,  before  addressing  his  family,  his 
friends,  his  countrymen,  first  salutes  Argos: 

By  your  leaves,  Lords,  first  Argos  I  salute. 

The  schoolboy  cannot  forget  the  cry  of  the  victim  of  Verrcs,  'which 
was  to  stay  the  descending  fasces  of  the  lictor,  "  I  am  a  Roman  citi 
zen;"  nor  those  other  words  sounding  in  the  dark  past,  "  How  sweet 
it  is  to  die  for  one's  country  !"  The  Christian  cry  did  not  rise,  "  I  cim 
a  man;"  the  Christian  ejaculation  did  not  swell  the  soul,  "  How  sweet 
it  is  to  die  for  duty  !"  The  beautiful  genius  of  Cicero,  at  times  in 
stinct  with  truth  almost  divine,  did  not  ascend  to  that  highest  heaven, 
where  is  taught,  that  all  mankind  are  neighbors  and  kindred,  and  that 
the  relations  of  fellow-countrymen  are  less  holy  than  those  of  fellow- 
man.  To  the  love  of  universal  man  may  be  applied  those  words  by 
which  the  great  Roman  elevated  his  selfish  patriotism  to  a  virtue,  when 
he  said  that  country  alone  embraced  all  the  charities  of  all.  Attach 
this  admired  phrase  for  a  moment  to  the  single  idea  of  country,  and 
you  will  see  how  contracted  are  its  charities  compared  with  the  world 
wide  circle  of  Christian  love,  whose  neighbor  is  the  suffering  man, 
though  at  the  farthest  pole.  Such  a  sentiment  would  dry  up  those 
fountains  of  benevolence,  which  now  diffuse  themselves  in  precious 
waters  in  distant  unenlightened  lands,  bearing  the  blessings  of  truth 
to  the  icy  mountains  of  Greenland,  and  the  coral  islands  of  the  Pacific 
sea. 

It  has  been  a  part  of  the  policy  of  rulers  to  encourage  this  exclusive 
patriotism;  and  the  people  of  modern  times  have  each  inherited  the 
feeling  of  antiquity.  I  do  not  know  that  any  one  nation  is  in  a  con 
dition  to  reproach  the  other  with  this  patriotic  selfishness.  All  are 
selfish.  Among  us  the  sentiment  has  become  active,  while  it  has  de 
rived  new  force  from  the  point  with  which  it  has  been  expressed.  An 
officer  of  our  navy,  one  of  the  so  called  heroes  nurtured  by  war,  whose 
name  has  been  praised  in  churches,  has  gone  beyond  all  Greek,  all  Ro 
man  example,  "  Our  country,  be  she  right  or  wrong,"  was  his  exclama 
tion:  a  sentiment  dethroning  God  and  enthroning  the  devil,  whose  flagi 
tious  character  should  be  rebuked  by  every  honest  heart.  "Our  country, 
our  whole  country,  and  nothing  but  our  country,"  are  other  wore";;, 
which  have  often  been  painted  on  banners,  and  echoed  by  the  voices " 
of  innumerable  multitudes.  Cold  and  dreary,  narrow  and  sclfirh, 
would  be  this  life,  if  nothing  but  our  country  occupied  our  souls;  it 
the  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity,  if  the  infinite  affections',  cf 
our  nature  were  restrained  to  that  spot  of  earth  where  we  have  bee  :\ 
placed  by  the  accident  of  birth. 

I  do  not  inculcate  an  indifference  to  country.  We  incline,  by  a 
natural  sentiment,  to  the  spot  where  we  were  born,  to  the  fiolc'r;  r/hitft 
witnessed  the  sports  of  childhood,  to  the  seat  of  youthful  stiv-ios.  ;-.r."i 
to  the  institutions  under  which  we  have  been  trained.  The  finger  of  God 


368  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

writes  in  indelible  colors  all  these  things  upon  the  heart  of  man,  so  that 
in  the  dread  extremities  of  death,  he  reverts  in  fondness  to  early  as 
sociations,  and  longs  for  a  draught  of  cold  water  from  the  bucket  in  his 
father's  well.  This  sentiment  is  independent  of  reflection,  for  it  begins 
before  reflection,  gro\vs  with  our  growth,  and  strengthens  with  our 
strength.  It  is  blind  in  its  nature;  and  it  is  the  duty  of  each  of  us  to 
take  care  that  it  does  not  absorb  the  whole  character.  In  the  moral 
night  which  has  enveloped  the  world,  each  nation,  thus  far,  has  lived 
ignorant  and  careless,  to  much  extent,  of  the  interests  of  others,  which 
it  imperfectly  saw;  but  this  thick  darkness  has  now  been  scattered, 
and  we  begin  to  discern,  all  gilded  by  the  beams  of  morning,  the 
distant  mountain-peaks  of  other  lands.  We  find  that  God  has  not 
placed  us  on  this  earth  alone;  that  there  are  other  nations,  equally 
with  us,  children  of  his  protecting  care. 

The  curious  spirit  goes  further,  and  while  it  recognizes  an  inborn 
sentiment  of  attachment  to  the  place  of  birth,  inquires  into  the 
nature  of  the  allegiance  which  is  due  to  the  state.  The  old  idea,  still 
too  much  received,  is,  that  man  is  made  for  the  state,  and  not  the 
state  for  man.  Far  otherwise  is  the  truth.  The  state  is  an  artificial 
body,  intended  for  the  security  of  the  people.  How  constantly  do  we 
find,  in  human  history,  that  the  people  have  been  sacrificed  for  the 
state;  to  build  the  Roman  name,  to  secure  to  England  the  trident  of 
the  sea.  This  is  to  sacrifice  the  greater  for  the  less;  for  the  fleet 
ing  possessions  of  earth  to  barter  the  immortal  soul.  Let  it  be  re 
membered  that  the  state  is  not  worth  preserving  at  the  cost  of  the 
lives  and  happiness  of  the  people. 

It  is  not  that  I  love  country  less,  but  humanity  more,  that  now,  on 
this  national  anniversary,  I  plead  the  cause  of  a  higher  and  truer 
patriotism.  Remember  that  you  are  men,  by  a  more  sacred  bond 
than  you  are  citizens;  that  you  are  children  of  a  common  father  more 
than  you  are  Americans. 

Viewing,  then,  the  different  people  of  the  globe,  as  all  deriving  their 
blood  from  a  common  source,  and  separated  only  by  the  accident  of 
mountains,  rivers  and  seas,  into  those  distinctions  around  which 
cluster  the  associations  of  country,  we  must  regard  all  the  children  of 
the  earth  as  members  of  the  great  human  family.  Discord  in  this 
family  is  treason  to  God;  while  all  war  is  nothing  more  than  civil 
war.  It  will  be  in  vain  that  we  restrain  this  odious  term,  importing 
so  much  of  horror,  to  the  petty  dissensions  of  a  single  state.  It  be 
longs  as  justly  to  the  feuds  between  nations.  The  soul  stands  aghast, 
as  we  contemplate  fields  drenched  in  fraternal  gore,  where  the  happi 
ness  of  homes  has  been  shivered  by  the  unfriendly  arms  of  neighbors, 
and  where  kinsmen  have  sunk  beneath  the  cold  steel  that  was  nerved 
by  a  kinsman's  hand.  This  is  civil  war,  which  stands  forever  accursed 
in  the  calandar  of  time.  But  the  muse  of  history,  in  the  faithful  record 
of  the  future  transactions  of  nations,  inspired  by  a  new  and  loftier 


CHARLES  SVM:\ER.  369 

justice,  and  touched  to  finer  sensibilities,  shall  extend  to  the  general 
sorrows  of  universal  man  the  sympathy  which  has  been  profusely  shed 
for  the  selfish  sorrow  of  country,  and  shall  pronounce  all  war  to 
be  civil  war,  and  the  partakers  in  it  as  traitors  to  God  and  enemies  to 
man. 

6.  I  might  pause,  fearing  that  those  of  my  hearers  who  have  kindly 
accompanied  me  to  this  stage,  would  be  ready  to  join  in  the  condem 
nation  of  war,  and  hail  peace,  as  the  only  condition  becoming  the 
dignity  of  human  nature,  and  in  which  true  greatness  can  be  achieved. 
But  there  is  still  one  more  consideration,  which  yields  to  none  of  the 
others  in  importance;  perhaps  it  is  more  important  than  all.  It  is  at 
once  cause  and  effect;  the  cause  of  much  of  the  feeling  in  favor  of 
war,  and  the  effect  of  this  feeling.  I  refer  to  the  costly  preparations 
for  war,  in  time  of  peace. 

I  do  not  propose  to  dwell  upon  the  immense  cost  of  war  itself.  That 
will  be  present  to  the  minds  of  all  in  the  mountainous  accumulations 
of  debt,  piled  like  Ossa  upon  Pelion,  with  which  Europe  is  pressed  to 
the  earth.  According  to  the  most  recent  tables  to  which  I  have  had 
access,  the  public  debt  of  the  different  European  states,  so  far  as  it  is 
known,  amounts  to  the  terrific  sum  of  $6,387,000,000,  all  of  this  the 
growth  of  war  !  It  is  said  that  there  are  throughout  these  states,  17,- 
900,000  paupers,  or  persons  subsisting  at  the  expense  of  the  country, 
without  contributing  to  its  resources.  If  these  millions  of  the  public 
debt,  forming  only  a  part  of  what  has  been  wasted  in  war,  could  be 
apportioned  among  these  poor,  it  would  give  to  each  of  them  $375, 
a  sum  which  would  place  all  above  want,  and  which  is  about  equal  to 
the?  average  value  of  the  property  of  each  inhabitant  of  Massachusetts. 

The  public  debt  of  Great  Britain  amounted  in  1839  to  $4, 265, 000,000, 
all  of  this  the  growth  of  war  since  1688  !  This  amount  is  about  equal  to 
the  sum  total,  according  to  the  calculations  of  Humloldt,  of  all  the 
treasures  which  have  been  reaped  from  the  harvest  of  gold  and  silver 
in  the  mines  of  Spanish  America,  including  Mexico  and  Peru,  since 
the  first  discovery  of  our  hemisphere  by  Christopher  Columbus  !  It  is 
much  larger  than  the  amount  of  all  the  precious  metals,  which  at  this 
moment  form  the  circulating  medium  of  the  world  !  It  is  said  rashly 
by  some  persons,  who  have  given  little  attention  to  this  subject,  that 
all  this  expenditure  was  good  for  the  people;  but  these  persons  do  not 
bear  in  mind  that  it  was  not  bestowed  on  any  useful  object.  It  was 
wasted.  The  aggregate  capital  of  all  the  joint  stock  companies  in  Eng 
land,  of  which  there  was  any  known  record  in  1842,  embracing  canals, 
docks,  bridges,  insurance  companies,  banks,  gas-lights,  water,  mines, 
railways,  and  other  miscellaneous  objects,  was  about  $835,000,000;  a 
sum  which  has  been  devoted  to  the  welfare  of  the  people,  but  how 
infinitely  less  in  amount  than  the  war  debt  !  For  the  six  years  ending 
in  1836,  the  average  payment  for  the  interest  on  this  debt  was  about 
$140,000,000  annually.  If  we  add  to  this  sum,  $60,000,000  during  this 


37°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

same  period1  paid  annually,  to  the  navy  and  ordnance,  we  shall  have 
$200,000,000  as  the  annual  tax  of  the  English  people,  to  pay  for  former 
wars  and  to  prepare  for  new.  During  this  same  period  there  was  an 
annual  appropriation  of  only  $20,000,000  for  all  the  civil  purposes  of 
the  government.  It  thus  appears  that  war  absorbed  ninety  cents  of 
every  dollar  that  was  pressed  by  heavy  taxation  from  the  English 
people,  who  almost  seem  to  sweat  blood  !  What  fabulous  monster,  or 
chimera  dire,  ever  raged  with  a  maw  so  ravenous  !  The  remaining 
ten  cents  sufficed  to  maintain  the  splendor  of  the  throne,  the  adminis 
tration  of  justice,  and  the  diplomatic  relations  with  foreign  powers,  in 
short  all  the  proper  objects  of  a  Christian  state. 

Let  us  now  look  exclusively  at  the  preparations  for  war  in  time  of 
peace.  It  is  one  of  the  miseries  of  war  that,  even  in  peace,  its  evils 
continue  to  be  felt  by  the  world,  beyond  any  other  evils  by  which  poor 
suffering  humanity  is  oppressed.  If  Bellona  withdraws  from  the  field, 
we  only  lose  the  sight  of  her  flaming  torches;  the  bay  of  her  dogs  is 
heard  on  the  mountains,  and  civilized  man  thinks  to  find  protection 
from  their  sudden  fury,  only  by  enclosing  himself  in  the  defences  cf 
war.  At  this  moment  the  Christian  nations,  worshipping  a  symbol  of 
common  brotherhood,  live  as  in  entrenched  camps,  in  which  they 
keep  armed  watch,  to  prevent  surprise  from  each  other. 

It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  arrive  at  any  exact  estimate  of 
the  cost  of  these  preparations,  ranging  under  four  different  heads;  the 
standing  army;  the  navy;  the  fortifications,  and  ordnance;  and  the 
militia  or  irregular  troops. 

The  number  of  soldiers  now  keeping  the  peace  of  European  Chris 
tendom,  as  a  standing  army,  without  counting  the  navy,  is  upwards  of 
two  millions.  Some  estimates  place  it  as  high  as  three  millions.  The 
army  of  Great  Britain  exceeds  300,000  men;  that  of  France  350,000; 
that  of  Russia  730,000,  and  is  reckoned  by  some  as  high  as  1,000,000  ; 
that  of  Austria  about  275,000;  and  that  of  Prussia  150,000.  Taking 
the  smaller  number,  suppose  these  two  millions  to  require  for  their 
annual  support  an  average  sum  of  only  $150  each,  the  result  would  be 
$300,000,000,  for  their  sustenance  alone;  and  reckoning  one  officer  to 
ten  soldiers,  and  allowing  to  each  of  the  latter  an  English  shilling  a 
day,  or  $87  a  year,  for  wages,  and  to  the  former  an  average  salary  of 
$500  a  year,  we  should  have  for  the  pay  of  the  whole  no  less  than 
$256,000,000;  or  an  appalling  sum  total  for  both  sustenance  and  pay 
of  $556,000,000.  If  the  same  calculation  be  made,  supposing  the 
forces  to  amount  to  three  millions,  the  sum  total  will  be  $835,000,000  ' 
But  to  this  enormous  sum  another  still  more  enormous  must  be  added 
on  account  of  the  loss  sustained  by  the  withdrawal  of  two  millions  of 
hardy,  healthy  men,  in  the  bloorn  of  life,  from  useful,  productive  labor. 
It  has  been  supposed  that  it  costs  an  average  of  $500  to  rear  a 
soldier;  and  that  the  value  of  his  labor  if  devoted  to  useful  objects 
would  be  $150  a  year.  The  Christtan  powers,  therefore,  in  setting 


CHARLES   SUMXr.!'.  371 

apart  two  millions  of  men,  as  soldiers,  sustain  a  loss  of  $1,000,000,000 
on  account  of  their  training;  and  $300,000,000  annually,  on  account 
of  their  labor.  So  much  for  the  cost  of  the  standing  army  of  European 
Christendom  in  time  of  peace. 

Glance  now  at  the  navy  of  European  Christendom.  The  royal  navy 
of  Great  Britain  consists  at  present  of  556  ships  of  all  classes;  but  de 
ducting  such  as  are  used  as  convict  ships,  floating  chapels,  coal 
depots,  the  efficient  navy  consists  of  83  sail  of  the  line,  109  frigates; 
190  small  frigates,  corvettes,  brigs  and  cutters,  including  packets;  65 
steamers  of  various  sizes;  3  troop-ships  and  yachts;  in  all  455  ships. 
Of  these  there  were  in  commission  in  July,  1839,  190  ships,  carrying 
in  all  4,202  guns.  The  number  of  hands  employed  in  1839,  was  34,- 
465.  The  navy  of  France,  though  not  comparable  in  size  with  that  of 
England,  is  of  vast  force.  By  royal  ordinance  of  1st  of  January,  1837, 
it  was  fixed  in  time  of  .peace  at  40  ships  of  the  line,  50  frigates,  40 
steamers,  and  190  smaller  vessels;  and  the  amount  of  crews  in  1839, 
was  20,317  men.  The  Russian  navy  consists  of  two  large  fleets  in  the 
Gulf  of  Finland  and  the  Black  Sea;  but  the  exact  amount  of  their  force 
and  their  available  resources  has  been  a  subject  of  dispute  amongst  naval 
men  and  politicians.  Some  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  size  of  the  navy 
from  the  number  of  hands  employed.  The  crews  of  tbe  Baltic  fleet 
amounted  in  1837,  to  not  less  than  30,800  men;  and  those  of  the  fleet 
in  the  Black  Sea  to  19,800,  or  altogether  50,600.  The  Austrian  navy 
consisted  in  1837,  of  8  ships  of  the  line,  8  frigates,  4  sloops,  6  brigs,  7 
schooners  or  galleys,  and  a  number  of  smaller  vessels;  the  number  of 
men  in  its  service  in  1839,  was  4,547.  The  navy  of  Denmark  con 
sisted  at  the  close  of  1837  of  7  ships  of  the  line,  7  frigates,  5  sloops,  6 
brigs,  3  schooners,  5  cutters,  58  gun-boats,  6  gun-rafts,  and  3  bomb 
vessels,  requiring  about  6,500  men  to  man  them.  The  navy  of  Swe 
den  and  Norway  consisted  recently  of  238  gun-boats,  u  ships  of  the 
line,  8  frigates,  4  corvettes,  6  brigs,  with  several  smaller  vessels.  The 
navy  of  Greece  consists  of  32  ships  of  wrar,  carrying  190  guns,  and  2,400 
men.  The  navy  of  Holland  in  1839,  consisted  of  8  ships  of  the  line, 
21  frigates,  15  corvettes,  21  brigs,  and  95  gun-boats.  It  is  impossible 
to  give  any  accurate  idea  of  the  immense  cost  of  all  these  mighty  pre 
parations  for  war.  It  is  melancholy  to  contemplate  such  gigantic 
means,  applied  by  European  Christendom  to  the  erection  of  these 
superfluous  wooden  walls  in  time  of  peace  ! 

In  the  fortifications  and  arsenals  of  Europe,  crowning  every  height, 
commanding  every  valley,  and  frowning  over  every  plain  and  every 
sea,  wealth  has  been  sunk  which  is  beyond  calculation.  Who  can  tell 
the  immense  sums  that  have  been  expended  in  hollowing  out,  for  the 
purposes  of  defence,  the  living  rock  of  Gibraltar  ?  Who  can  calculate 
the  cost  of  all  the  preparations  at  Woolwich,  its  27,000  cannons,  and 
its  hundreds  of  thousands  of  small  arms  ?  France  alone  contains  up 
wards  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  fortified  places.  And  ii  is  supposed 


372  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

that  the  yet  unfinished  fortifications  of  Paris  have  cost  upwards  of  fifty 
millions  of  dollars  ! 

The  cost  of  the  militia  or  irregular  troops,  the  yeomanry  of 
England,  the  national  guards  of  Paris,  and  the  landwehr  and  land- 
sturm  of  Prussia,  must  add  other  incalculable  sums  to  these  enormous 
amounts. 

Turn  now  to  the  United  States,  separated  by  a  broad  ocean  from 
immediate  contact  with  the  great  powers  of  Christendom,  bound  by 
treaties  of  amity  and  commerce  with  all  the  nations  of  the  earth;  con 
nected  with  all  by  the  strong  ties  of  mutual  interest;  and  professing  a 
devotion  to  the  principles  of  peace.  Are  the  treaties  of  amity  mere 
words  ?  Are  the  relations  of  commerce  and  mutual  interest  mere 
things  of  a  day  ?  Are  the  professions  of  peace  vain  ?  Else  why  not 
repose  in  quiet  unvexed  by  preparations  for  war  ? 

Enormous  as  are  the  expenses  of  this  character  in  Europe,  those  in 
our  country  are  still  greater  in  proportion  to  the  other  expenditures  of 
the  federal  government. 

It  appears  that  the  average  expenditures  of  the  federal  government 
for  the  six  years  ending  with  1840,  exclusive  of  payment  on  account  of 
debt,  were  $26,474,892;  of  this  sum,  the  average  appropriation,  each 
vear  for  military  and  naval  purposes  amounted  to  $21,328,903,  being 
eighty  per  cent,  of  ihe  whole  amount  !  Yes;  of  all  the  income  which  was 
received  by  the  federal  government,  eighty  cents  in  every  dollar  was 
applied  in  this  useless  way.  The  remaining  twenty  cents  sufficed  to 
maintain  the  government,  the  administration  of  justice,  our  relations 
with  foreign  nations,  the  light-houses  which  shed  their  cheerful  signals 
over  the  rough  waves  which  beat  upon  our  long  and  indented  coast, 
from  the  Bay  of  Fundy  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  Let  us  ob 
serve  the  relative  expenditures  of  the  United  States,  in  the  scale  of  the 
nations,  for  military  preparations,  in  time  of  peace,  exclusive  of  pay 
ments  on  account  of  the  debts.  These  expenditures  are  in  proportion 
to  the  whole  expenditure  of  government  : 

In  Austria,  as  33  per  cent., 

In  France,  as  38  per  cent., 

In  Prussia,  as  44  per  cent., 

In  Great  Britain,  as  74  per  cent., 

In  the  United  States,  as  80  per  cent ! 

To  these  superfluous  expenditures  of  the  Federal  Government,  are  to 
be  added  the  still  larger  and  equally  superfluous  expenses  of  the  mili 
tia  throughout  the  country,  which  have  been  placed  at  $50,000,000  a 
year ! 

By  a  table  of  the  expenditures  of  the  United  States,  exclusive  of 
payments  on  account  of  the  public  debt,  it  appears  that,  in  the  fifty- 
three  years  from  the  formation  of  our  present  government,  in  1789 
down  to  1843,  there  have  been  $246,620,055  spent  for  civil  purposes, 
comprehending  the  expenses  of  the  executive,  the  legislative,  the  judi- 


CH AXLES  SUMXER.  375 

ciary,  the  post  office,  light  houses,  and  intercourse  wilh  foreign  gov 
ernments.  During  this  same  period  there  have  been  $368,526,594  de 
voted  to  the  military  establishment,  and  $170,437,684  to  the  naval  es 
tablishment;  the  two  forming  an  aggregate  of  $538,964,278.  Deduct 
ing  from  this  sum  the  appropriations  during  three  years  of  war,  and 
we  shall  find  that  more  than  four  hundred  millions  were  absorbed  by 
vain  preparations  in  time  of  peace  for  war.  Add  to  this  amount  a 
moderate  sum  for  the  expenses  of  the  militia  during  the  same  period, 
which  a  candid  and  able  writer  places  at  present  at  $50,000,000  a  year; 
for  the  past  years  we  may  take  an  average  of  $25,000,000,  and  we  shall 
have  the  enormous  sum  of  $1,335,000,000  to  be  added  to  the  $400,000,- 
ooo;  the  whole  amounting  to  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-five  mil 
lions  of  dollars,  a  sum  beyond  the  conception  of  human  faculties,  sunk 
under  the  sanction  of  the  government  of  the  United  Stater,  in  mere 
peaceful  preparations  for  war;  more  than  seven  times  as  much  as  was 
dedicated  by  the  government,  during  the  same  period,  to  all  other 
purposes  whatsoever. 

From  this  serried  array  of  figures  the  mind  instinctively  retreats. 
If  we  examine  them  from  a  nearer  point  of  view,  and,  selecting  some 
particular  part,  compare  it  with  the  figures  representing  other  interests 
in  the  community  they  will  present  a  front  still  more  dread. 

Within  a  short  distance  of  this  city  stands  an  institution  of  learning, 
which  was  one  of  the  earliest  cares  of  the  early  forefathers  cf  the 
country,  the  conscientious  Puritans.  Favored  child  of  an  age  of  trial 
and  struggle,  carefully  nursed  through  a  period  of  hardship  and 
anxiety,  endowed  at  that  time  by  the  oblations  of  men  like  Harvard, 
sustained  from  its  first  foundation  by  the  paternal  arm  of  the  com 
monwealth,  by  a  constant  succession  of  munificent  bequests,  and  by 
the  prayers  of  all  good  men,  the  University  at  Cambridge  now  invites 
our  homage  as  the  most  ancient,  the  most  interesting  and  the  most 
important  seat  of  learning  in  the  land;  possessing  the  oldest  and 
most  valuable  library,  one  of  the  largest  museums  of  mineralogy  and 
natural  history — a  school  of  law,  which  annually  receives  into  its  bosom 
more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  sons  from  all  parts  of  the.  Union, 
where  they  listen  to  instruction  from  professors  whose  names  have 
become  among  the  most  valuable  possessions  of  the  land — a  school  of 
divinity,  the  nurse  of  true  learning  and  piety — one  of  the  largest  and 
most  flourishing  schools  of  medicine  in  the  country — besides  these,  a 
general  body  of  teachers,  twenty-seven  in  number,  many  of  whose 
names  help  to  keep  the  name  of  the  country  respectable  in  every  part 
of  the  globe,  where  science,  learning  and  taste  are  cherished — the 
whole  presided  over  at  this  moment  by  a  gentleman,  early  distin 
guished  in  public  life  by  his  unconquerable  energies  and  his  masculine 
eloquence,  at  a  later  period,  by  the  unsurpassed  ability  with  which  he 
administered  the  affairs  of  our  city,  now,  in  a  green  old  age,  full  of 
years  and  honors,  preparing  to  lay  down  his  present  high  trust.  Such 


374  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

Is  Harvard  University,  and  as  one  of  the  humblest  of  her  children, 
happy  in  the  recollection  of  a  youth  nurtured  in  her  classic  retreats, 
I  cannot  allude  to  her  without  an  expression  of  filial  affection  and 
respect. 

It  appears  from  the  last  report  of  the  treasurer,  that  the  whole  avail 
able  property  of  the  university,  the  various  accumulations  of  more 
than  two  centuries  of  generosity,  amounts  to  $703,175. 

There  now  swings  idly  at  her  moorings,  in  this  harbor,  a  ship  of  the 
line,  the  Ohio,  carrying  ninety  guns,  finished  as  late  as  1836  for  $547,- 
888;  repaired  only  two  years  afterwards  in  1838,  for  $223,012;  with  an 
armament  which  has  cost  $53,945;  making  an  amount  of  $834,845,  as 
the  actual  cost  at  this  moment  of  that  single  ship;  more  than  $100,000 
beyond  all  the  available  accumulations  of  the  richest  and  most  ancient 
seat  of  learning  in  the  land?  Choose  ye,  my  fellow  citizens  of  a 
Christian  state,  between  the  two  caskets — that  wherein  is  the  loveliness 
of  knowledge  and  truth,  or  that  which  contains  the  carrion  death. 

Let  us  pursue  the  comparison  still  further.  The  account  of  the  ex 
penditures  of  the  university  during  the  last  year,  for  the  general  pur 
poses  of  the  college,  the  instruction  of  the  undergraduates,  and  for  the 
schools  of  law  and  divinity,  amounts  to  $45,949.  The  cost  of  the  Ohio 
for  one  year  in  service,  in  salaries,  wages  and  provisions,  is  $220,000; 
being  $175,000  more  than  the  annual  expenditures  of  the  university; 
more  than  four  times  as  much.  In  other  words,  for  the  annual  sum 
which  is  lavished  on  one  ship  of  the  line,  four  institutions,  like  Harvard 
University,  might  be  sustained  throughout  the  country  ! 

Still  further  let  us  pursue  the  comparison.  The  pay  of  the  captain  of 
a  ship  like  the  Ohio,  is  $4,500,  when  in  service;  $3,500,  when  on  leave 
of  absence,  or  off  duty.  The  salary  of  the  president  of  the  Harvard 
University  is  $2,205;  without  leave  of  absence,  and  never  being  off 
duty ! 

If  the  large  endowments  of  Harvard  University  are  dwarfed  by  a 
comparison  with  the  expense  of  a  single  ship  of  the  line,  how  much 
more  must  it  be  so  with  those  of  other  institutions  of  learning  and 
beneficence,  less  favored  by  the  bounty  of  many  generations.  The 
average  cost  of  a  sloop  of  war  is  $315,000;  more,  probably,  than  all 
the  endowments  of  those  twin  stars  of  learning  in  the  western  part  of 
Massachusetts,  the  colleges  at  Williamstown  and  Amherst,  and  of  that 
single  star  in  the  east,  the  guide  to  many  ingenuous  youth,  the  semin 
ary  at  Andover.  The  yearly  cost  of  a  sloop  of  war  in  service  is  above 
$50,000;  more  than  the  annual  expenditure  of  these  three  institutions 
combined. 

I  might  press  the  comparison  with  other  institutions  of  beneficence; 
with  the  annual  expenditures  for  the  blind — that  noble  and  successful 
charity,  which  has  shed  true  lustre  upon  our  commonwealth,  amount 
ing  to  $12, ocx);  and  the  annual  expenditures  for  the  insane  of  the  com 
monwealth,  another  charity  dear  to  humanity,  amounting  to  $27,844. 


CHARLES   SUMNER.  375 

Take  all  the  institutions  of  learning  and  beneficence,  the  precious 
jewels  of  the  commonwealth,  the  schools,  colleges,  hospitals  and  asy 
lums,  and  the  sums  by  which  they  have  been  purchased  and  preserved 
are  trivial  and  beggarly,  compared  with  the  treasure  squandered  within 
the  borders  of  Massachusetts  in  vain  preparations  for  war.  There  is 
the  navy  yard  at  Charlestown,  with  its  stores  on  hand,  all  costing 
$4,741,000;  the  fortifications  in  the  harbors  of  Massachusetts,  in  which 
have  been  sunk  already  incalculable  sums,  and  in  which  it  is  now  pro 
posed  to  sink  $3, 8 5 3,000  more;  and  besides,  the  arsenal  at  Springfield, 
containing  in  1842,  175,118  muskets,  valued  at  $2,999,998,  and  which 
is  fed  by  an  annual  appropriation  of  about  $200,000;  but  whose  highest 
value  will  ever  be,  in  the  judgment  of  all  lovers  of  truth,  that  it  in 
spired  a  poem,  which,  in  its  influence  shall  be  mightier  than  a  battle, 
and  shall  endure  when  arsenals  and  fortifications  have  crumbled  to 
the  earth. 

Look  for  one  moment  at  a  high  and  peculiar  interest  of  the  nation, 
the  administration  of  justice.  Perhaps  no  part  of  our  system  is  re 
garded  with  more  pride  and  confidence  by  the  enlightened  sense  of  the 
country.  To  this,  indeed,  all  the  other  concerns  of  government,  all 
its  complications  of  machinery,  are  in  a  manner  subordinate,  since  it 
is  for  the  sake  of  justice  that  men  come  together  in  states  and  establish 
laws.  What  part  of  the  government  can  compare  in  importance,  with 
the  federal  judiciary,  that  great  balance  wheel  of  the  constitution,  con 
trolling  the  relations  of  the  states  to  each  other,  the  legislation  of 
Congress  and  of  the  states,  besides  private  interests  to  an  incalculable 
amount  ?  Nor  can  the  citizen,  who  discerns  the  true  glory  of  his 
country,  fail  to  recognize  in  the  judicial  labors  of  Marshall,  now  de 
parted,  and  in  the  immortal  judgments  of  Story,  who  is  still  spared  to 
us, — scms  in  ccclum  rcdeat — a  higher  claim  to  admiration  and  gratitude 
than  can  be  found  in  any  triumph  of  battle.  The  expenses  of  the  ad 
ministration  of  justice,  throughout  the  United  States,  under  the  federal 
government,  in  1842;  embracing  the  salaries  of  the  judges,  the 
cost  of  juries,  court-houses  and  all  offices  thereof,  in  short  all  the 
outlay  by  which  justice,  according  to  the  requirements  of  Magna 
Charta,  is  carried  to  every  man's  door,  amounted  to  $560990,  a  larger 
sum  than  is  usually  appropriated  for  this  purpose,  but  how  insignifi 
cant  compared  with  the  demands  of  the  army  and  navy  ! 

Let  me  allude  to  one  more  curiosity  of  waste.  It  appears,  by  a 
calculation  founded  on  the  expenses  of  the  navy,  that  the  average  cost 
of  each  gun,  carried,  over  the  ocean,  for  one  year,  amounts  to  about 
fifteen  thousand  dollars;  a  sum  sufficient  to  sustain  ten  professors  of 
colleges,  and  equal  to  the  salaries  of  all  the  judges  of  the  supreme 
court  of  Massachusetts  and  the  governor  combined  ! 

Such  are  a  few  brief  illustrations  of  the  tax  which  the  nations  of  the 
world,  and  particularly  our  own  country,  impose  on  the  people,  in 
time  of  profound  peace,  for  ro  purpose  of  good,  but  only  in  obedience 
A.  P.-13. 


376  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

to  the  spirit  oi  war.  As  we  wearily  climb,  in  this  survey,  from  expen 
diture  to  expenditure,  from  waste  to  waste,  we  seem  to  pass  beyond 
the  region  of  ordinary  calculation;  Alps  on  Alps  arise,  on  whose 
crowning  heights  of  everlasting  ice,  far  above  the  habitations  of  man, 
where  no  green  thing  lives,  where  no  creature  draws  its  breath,  we 
behold  the  cold,  sharp,  flashing  glacier  of  war. 

In  The  contemplation  of  this  spectacle  the  soul  swells  with  alternate 
:  despair  and  hope;  with  despair,  at  the  thought  of  such  wealth,  capable 
'of  rendering  such  service  to  humanity,  not  merely  wasted  but  given  to 
perpetuate  hate;  with  hope,  as  the  blessed  vision  arises  of  the  devotion 
of  all  these  incalcuable  means  to  the  purposes  of  peace.  The  whole 
world  labors  at  this  moment  with  poverty  and  distress;  and  the  painful 
question  occurs  to  every  observer,  in  Europe  as  well  as  at  home, — 
what  shall  become  of  the  poor, — the  increasing  standing  army  of  the 
poor.  Could  the  humble  voice  that  now  addresses  you  penetrate 
those  distant  counsels,  or  counsels  nearer  home,  it  would  say,  disband 
your  standing  armies  of  soldiers ;  abandon  your  fortifications  and 
arsenals,  or  dedicate  them  to  works  of  beneficence,  as  the  statue  of 
Jupiter  Capitolinus  was  changed  to  the  image  of  a  Christian  saint ; 
apply  your  navy  to  purposes  of  commerce:  in  fine,  utterly  forsake  the 
present  incongruous  system  of  armed  peace  ! 

That  I  may  not  seem  to  press  to  this  conclusion  with  too  much  haste, 
at  least  as  regards  our  own  country,  I  shall  consider  briefly,  as  be 
comes  the  occasion,  the  asserted  usefulness  of  the  national  defences 
which  it  is  proposed  to  abandon. 

What  is  the  use  of  the  standing  army  of  the  United  States  ?  It  has 
been  a  principle  of  freedom,  during  many  generations,  to  avoid  a  stand 
ing  army;  and  one  of  the  complaints  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence  was  that  George  III.  had  quartered  large  bodies  of  troops  in  the 
colonies.  For  the  first  few  years,  after  the  adoption  of  the  Federal 
Constitution,  during  our  weakness,  before  our  power  was  assured, 
before  our  name  had  become  respected  in  the  family  of  nations,  under 
the  administration  of  Washington,  a  small  sum  was  deemed  ample  for 
the  military  establishment  of  the  United  States.  It  was  only  when  the 
country,  at  a  later  day,  had  been  touched  by  the  insanity  of  war,  that 
it  surrendered  to  military  prejudices,  and,  abandoning  the  true  econ 
omy  of  a  republic,  cultivated  a  military  spirit,  and  lavished  the  means, 
which  it  begrudged  to  the  purposes  of  peace,  in  vain  preparation  for 
war.  It  may  now  be  said  of  the  army  of  the  United  States,  as  Dun 
ning  said  of  the  prerogatives  of  the  Crown,  it  has  increased,  is  increas 
ing,  and  ought  to  be  diminished.  At  this  moment  there  are  more 
than  fifty-five  military  posts  in  the  country.  Of  what  use  is  the  de> 
tachment  of  the  second  regiment  of  artillery  in  the  quiet  town  of  New 
London  in  Connecticut  ?  Of  what  use  is  the  detachment  of  the  first 
regiment  of  artillery  in  that  pleasant  resort  of  fashion,  Newport?  No 
person,  who  has  not  lost  all  sensibility  to  the  dignity  of  human  nature, 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  377 

can  observe,  without  mortification,  the  discipline,  the  drilling,  the 
marching  and  countermarching,  the  putting  guns  to  the  shoulder  and 
the  dropping  them  to  the  earth,  which  fill  the  lives  of  the  poor  soldiers, 
and  prepare  them  to  become  the  mere  inanimate  parts  of  a  mere 
machine,  to  which  the  great  living  master  of  the  art  of  war  has  likened 
an  army.  And  this  sensibility  must  be  much  more  offended  when  he 
beholds  a  number  of  the  ingenious  youth  of  the  country,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  government,  amidst  the  bewitching  scenery  of  West 
Point,  trained  to  the  same  farcical  and  humiliating  exercises.  It  is 
time  that  the  people  should  declare  the  army  to  be  an  utterly  useless 
branch  of  the  public  service;  but  not  merely  useless,  also  a  seminary 
of  idleness  and  vice,  breeding  manners  uncongenial  with  our  institu 
tions,  shortening  the  lives  of  those  whom  it  enlists,  and  maintained  at 
an  expense,  as  we  have  already  seen,  which  far  surpasses  all  that  is 
bestowed  on  all  the  civil  purposes  of  the  government. 

But  I  hear  the  voice  of  some  defender  of  this  abuse,  some  upholder 
of  this  '•  rotten  borough"  of  our  constitution,  crying,  the  army  is  needed 
for  the  defence  of  the  country  !  As  well  might  you  say,  that  the 
shadow  is  needed  for  the  defence  of  the  body  ;  for  what  is  the  army  of 
the  United  States  but  the  feeble  shadow  of  the  power  of  the  American 
people  !  In  placing  the  army  on  its  present  footing,  so  small  in  num 
bers  compared  with  the  forces  of  the  great  European  states,  our  gov 
ernment  has  tacitly  admitted  its  superfluousness  as  a  means  of  defence. 
Moreover,  there  is  one  plea  for  standing  armies  in  Europe  which  can 
not  prevail  here.  They  are  supposed  to  be  needed  by  governments, 
which  do  not  proceed  from  the  popular  voice,  to  sustain  their  power. 
The  monarchs  of  the  old  world,  like  the  chiefs  of  the  ancient  German 
tribes,  are  upborne  on  the  shields  of  the  soldiery.  Happily  with  us 
the  government  springs  from  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  needs  no 
janizaries  for  its  support.  It  only  remains  to  declare  distinctly  that 
the  country  will  repose,  in  the  consciousness  of  right,  without  the 
wasteful  excess  of  supporting  soldiers,  lazy  consumers  of  the  fruits  of 
the  earth,  who  might  do  the  state  good  service  in  the  various  depart 
ments  of  useful  industry. 

What  is  the  use  of  the  navy  of  the  United  States?  The  annual 
expense  of  our  navy  for  several  years  past  has  been  upwards  of  six 
millions  of  dollars.  For  what  purpose  is  this  paid  ?  Not  for  the 
apprehension  of  pirates;  for  frigates  and  ships  of  the  line  are  of  too 
great  bulk  to  be  of  service  for  this  purpose.  Not  for  the  suppression 
of  the  slave  trade;  for,  under  the  stipulations  with  Great  Britain,  we 
employ  only  eighty  guns  in  this  holy  alliance.  Not  to  protect  our 
coasts;  for  all  agree  that  our  few  ships  would  form  an  unavailing  de 
fence  against  any  serious  attack.  Not  for  these  purposes  all  will 
admit;  but  for  the  protection  of  our  navigation.  This  is  not  the  occa 
sion  for  minute  calculations.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  an  intelligent 
merchant,  who  has  been  extensively  engaged  in  commerce  for  the  last 


37s  A  M ERIC  A  N  PA  TRIO  TIS1L 

twenty  years,  and  who  speaks,  therefore,  with  the  authority  of  knowl 
edge,  has  demonstrated  in  a  tract  of  perfect  clearness,  that  the  annual 
amount  of  the  freights  of  the  whole  mercantile  marine  of  the  country 
does  not  equal  the  annual  expenditure  of  the  navy  of  the  United 
States.  Protection  at  such  cost  is  more  ruinous  than  one  of  Pyrrhus' 
victories. 

In  objecting  to  the  navy,  I  wish  to  limit  myself  to  the  navy  as  an 
asserted  arm  of  national  defence.  So  far  as  it  may  be  necessary,  as  a 
part  of  the  police  of  the  seas,  to  purge  them  of  pirates,  and  above  all, 
to  defeat  the  hateful  traffic  in  human  flesh,  it  is  a  proper  arm  of 
government.  The  free  cities  of  Hamburgh  and  Bremen,  survivors  of 
the  great  Hanseatic  League,  with  a  commerce  that  whitens  the  most 
distant  seas,  are  without  a  single  ship  of  war.  Let  the  United  States  be 
willing  to  follow  their  wise  example,  and  abandon  an  institution  which 
has  already  become  a  vain  and  most  expensive  toy  ! 

What  is  the  use  of  the  fortifications  of  the  United  States  ?  We  have 
already  seen  the  enormous  sums  which  have  been  locked  in  the  dead 
hands,  in  the  odious  mortmain,  of  their  everlasting  masonry.  This  is 
in  the  hope  of  saving  the  country  thereby  from  the  horrors  of  con 
quest  and  bloodshed.  And  here  let  me  meet  this  suggestion  with 
frankness  and  distinctness.  I  will  not  repeat  what  has  been  set  forth 
in  an  earlier  part  of  my  remarks,  the  considerations  showing  that  in, 
our  age,  no  war  of  strict  self-defence  can  possibly  arise,  no  war  which 
can  be  supported  by  the  consciences  of  those  even  who  disclaim 
the  highest  standard  of  the  Gospel;  but  I  will  suppose  the  case  of  a 
war,  unjust  and  unchristian  it  must  be,  between  our  country  and  one 
of  the  great  powers  of  Europe.  In  such  a  war,  what  Avould  be  the 
effect  of  the  fortifications  ?  Clearly  to  invite  the  attack,  which  they 
would  in  all  probability  be  inadequate  to  defeat.  It  is  a  rule  now 
recognized  even  in  the  barbarous  code  of  war,  one  branch  of  which 
has  been  illustrated  \vith  admirable  ability  in  the  diplomatic  corre 
spondence  of  Mr.  Webster,  that  noncombatants  shall  not,  in  any  way, 
be  molested,  and  that  the  property  of  private  persons  shall  in  all  cases 
be  held  sacred.  So  firmly  did  the  Duke  of  Wellington  act  upon  this 
rule,  that  throughout  the  murderous  campaigns  of  Spain,  and  after 
wards  when  he  entered  France,  flushed  with  the  victory  of  Waterloo, 
he  directed  that  his  army  should  pay  for  all  provisions,  and  even  for  the 
forage  of  their  horses.  The  war  is  carried  on  against  public  property 
— against  fortifications,  navv-yards  and  arsenals.  But  if  these  do  not 
exist,  there  can  be  no  aliment,  no  fuel  for  the  flame.  Every  new  for 
tification  and  every  additional  gun  in  our  harbor  is,  therefore,  not  a 
safeguard,  but  a  source  of  danger  to  our  city.  Better  throw  them  in 
the  sea,  than  madly  allow  them  to  draw  to  our  homes  the  lightning  of 
battle,  without,  alas,  any  conductor  to  hurry  terrors  innocently  be 
neath  the  concealing  bosom  of  the  earth! 

What  is  the  use  of  the  militia  of  the  United  States  ?     This  immense 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  379 

system  spreads,  with  more  than  a  hundred  arms,  over  the  whole 
country,  sucking  its  best  life-blood,  the  unbought  energies  of  the 
youth.  The  same  farcical  discipline,  shouldering  arms  and  carrying 
arms,  which  we  have  observed  in  the  soldier,  absorbs  their  time, 
though,  of  course,  to  a  much  less  degree  than  in  the  regular  army. 
We  read  with  astonishment  of  the  painted  flesh,  and  uncouth  vest 
ments  of  our  progenitors,  the  ancient  Britons.  The  generation  will 
soon  come  that  will  regard  with  equal  wonder  the  pictures  of  their  an 
cestors,  closely  dressed  in  padded  and  well-buttoned  coats  of  blue, 
"besmeared  with  gold,"  surmounted  by  a  huge  mountain-cap  of 
shaggy  bear-skin,  and  with  a  barbarous  device,  typical  of  brute  force, 
a  tiger,  painted  on  oil-skin,  tied  with  leather  to  their  backs!  In  the 
streets  of  Pisa,  the  galley-slaves  are  compelled  to  wear  dresses  stamped 
with  the  name  of  the  crime  for  which  they  are  suffering  punishment; 
as  theft,  robbery,  murder.  It  is  not  a  little  strange,  that  Christians, 
living  in  a  land  "where  bells  have  tolled  to  church,"  should  volun 
tarily  adopt  devices  which,  if  they  have  any  meaning,  recognize  the 
example  of  beasts  as  worthy  of  imitation  by  man.  The  general  con 
siderations  which  belong  to  the  subject  of  preparations  for  war  will 
illustrate  the  inanity  of  the  militia  for  purposes  of  national  defence. 
I  do  not  know,  indeed,  that  it  is  now  strongly  advocated  on  this 
ground.  It  is  most  often  spoken  of  as  an  important  part  of  the  police 
of  the  country.  I  would  not  undervalue  the  blessings  to  be  derived 
from  an  active,  efficient,  ever-wakeful  police;  and  I  believe  that  such 
a  police  has  been  long  required  in  our  country.  But  the  militia,  com 
posed  of  youth  of  undoubted  character,  though  of  untried  courage,  is 
clearly  inadequate  for  this  purpose.  No  person,  who  has  seen  them 
in  an  actual  riot,  can  hesitate  in  this  judgment.  A  very  small  portion 
of  the  means  which  are  absorbed  by  the  militia,  would  provide  a  police 
that  should  be  competent  to  all  the  emergencies  of  domestic  disorder 
and  violence. 

The  City  of  Boston  has  long  been  convinced  of  the  inexpediency  of 
a  Fire  Department  composed  of  mere  volunteers.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
a  similar  conviction  may  pervade  the  country  with  regard  to  the  police. 
I  am  well  aware,  however,  that  efforts  to  abolish  the  militia  system  will 
be  encountered  by  some  of  the  dearest  prejudices  of  the  common  mind  ; 
not  only  by  the  war  spirit  ;  but  by  that  other  spirit,  which  first  animates 
childhood,  and  at  a  later  day,  "  children  of  a  larger  growth,"  inviting 
to  finery  of  dress  and  parade, — the  same  spirit  which  fantastically  be 
decks  the  dusky  feather-cinctured  chiefs  of  the  soft  regions  warmed 
by  the  tropical  sun  ;  which  inserts  rings  in  the  noses  of  the  North 
American  Indians  ;  which  slits  the  ears  of  the  Australian  savages  ;  and 
tattoes  the  New  Zealand  cannibals. 

Such  is  a  review  of  the  time  character  and  value  of  the  national  de 
fences  of  the  United  States  !  It  will  be  observed  that  I  have  thus  far 
regarded  them  in  the  plainest  light  of  ordinary  wordly  economy,  with- 


3 So  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

out  reference  to  those  higher  considerations,  founded  on  the  history  and 
nature  of  man,  and  the  truths  of  Christianity,  which  pronounce  them  to 
be  vain.  It  is  grateful  to  know,  that  though  they  may  yet  have  the 
support  of  what  Jeremy  Taylor  calls  the  "popular  noises,"  still  the 
more  economical,  more  humane,  more  wise,  more  Christian  system  is 
daily  commending  itself  to  wide  circles  of  the  good  people  of  the  land. 
All  the  virtues  that  truly  elevate  a  state  are  on  its  side.  Economy,  sick 
of  the  pigmy  efforts  to  staunch  the  smallest  fountains  and  rills  of  exu 
berant  expenditure,  pleads  that  here  is  an  endless,  boundless  river,  an 
Amazon  of  waste,  rolling  its  turbid,  unhealthy  waters  vainly  to  the  sea. 
It  chides  us  with  an  unnatural  inconsistency  when  we  strain  at  a  little 
twine  and  red  tape,  and  swallow  the  monstrous  cables  and  armaments 
of  war.  Humanity  pleads  for  the  poor  from  whom  such  mighty  means 
are  withdrawn.  Wisdom  frowns  on  these  preparations  as  calculated  to 
nurse  sentiments  inconsistent  with  peace.  Christianity  calmly  rebukes 
the  spirit  in  which  they  have  their  origin,  as  being  of  little  faith,  and 
treacherous  to  her  high  behests  ;  while  History  shows  the  sure  progress 
of  man,  like  the  lion  in  Paradise  still  "  pawing  to  get  free  his  hinder 
parts,"  but  certain,  if  he  be  true  to  his  nature,  to  emancipate  himself 
from  the  restraints  of  earth. 

The  sentiment,  that  in  time  of  peace  we  must  prepare  for  war,  has 
been  transmitted  from  distant  ages  when  brute  force  prevailed.  It  is  the 
terrible  inheritance,  the  damnosa  hcrreditas,  which  painfully  reminds  the 
people  of  our  day  of  their  relations  with  the  past.  It  belongs  to  the 
rejected  dogmas  of  barbarism.  It  is  the  companion  of  those  harsh  rules 
of  tyranny  by  which  the  happiness  of  the  many  has  been  offered  up  to 
the  propensities  of  the  few.  It  is  the  child  of  suspicion  and  the  fore 
runner  of  violence.  Having  in  its  favor  the  almost  uninterrupted  usage 
of  the  world,  it  possesses  a  hold  on  the  common  mind,  which  is 
lot  easily  unloosed.  And  yet  the  conscientious  _soul  cannot  fail,  on. 
careful  observation  to  detect  its  most  mischievous  fallacy — a  fallacy  the 
nost  costly  the  world  has  witnessed,  and  which  dooms  nations  to  annual 
ributes  in  comparison  with  which  all  that  have  been  extorted  by  con- 
mests  are  as  the  widow's  mite  by  the  side  of  Pharisaical  contributions. 
So  true  is  what  Rousseau  said,  and  Guizot  has  since  repeated,  "  that  a 
jad  principle  is  far  worse  than  a  bad  fact  ;"  for  the  operations  of  the  one 
re  finite,  while  those  of  the  other  are  infinite. 

I  speak  of  this  principle  with  earnestness  ;  for  I  believe  it  to  be  erro- 
heous  and  false,  founded  in  ignorance  and  barbarism,  unworthy  of  an 
age  of  light,  and  disgraceful  to  Christians.  I  have  called  it  a  principle  ; 
but  it  is  a  mere  prejudice — sustained  by  human  example  only,  and  net 
by  lofty  truth — in  obeying  which  we  imitate  the  early  mariners,  who 
steered  from  headland  to  headland  and  hugged  the  shore,  unwilling  to 
venture  upon  the  broad  ocean,  where  their  guide  should  be  the  lumi 
naries  of  Heaven. 

Dismissing  from,  our  minds,  the  actual  usage  of  nations  on  the  one 


CHARLES   SUAINER.  381 

side,  and  the  considerations  of  economy  on  the  other,  and  regarding 
preparations  for  war  in  time  of  peace  in  the  clear  light  of  reason,  in  a 
just  appreciation  of  the  nature  of  man,  and  in  the  injunctions  of  the 
highest  truth,  and  they  cannot  fail  to  be  branded  as  most  pernicious. 
They  are  pernicious  on  two  grounds  ;  first,  because  they  inflame  the 
people,  who  make  them,  exciting  them  to  deeds  of  violence  which 
otherwise  would  be  most  alien  to  their  minds,  and  second,  because, 
having  their  origin  in  the  low  motive  of  distrust  and  hate,  they  inevitably, 
by  a  sure  law  of  the  human  mind,  excite  a  corresponding  feeling  in  other 
nations.  Thus  they  are  in  fact  not  the  preservers  of  peace,  but  thepro- 
vokers  of  war. 

In  illustration  of  the  first  of  these  grounds,  it  will  occur  to  every  in 
quirer  that  the  possession  of  power  is  always  in  itself  dangerous,  that 
it  tempts  the  purest  and  highest  natures  to  self-indulgence,  that  it  can 
rarely  be  enjoyed  without  abuse  ;  nor  is  the  power  to  employ  force  in 
war,  or  otherwise,  an  exception  to  this  law.  History  teaches  that  the 
nations  possessing  the  greatest  military  forces  have  always  been  the 
most  belligerent ;  while  the  feebler  powers  have  enjoyed,  for  a  longer 
period,  the  blessings  of  peace.  The  din  of  war  resounds  throughout 
more  than  seven  hundred  years  of  Roman  history,  with  only  two 
short  lulls  of  repose  ;  while  smaller  states,  less  potent  in  arms,  and 
without  the  excitement  to  quarrels  on  this  account,  have  enjoyed  long 
eras  of  peace.  It  is  not  in  the  history  of  nations  only  that  we  find 
proofs  of  this  law.  Like  every  great  moral  principle,  it  applies  equally 
to  individuals.  The  experience  of  private  life,  in  all  ages,  confirms  it. 
The  wearing  of  arms  has  always  been  a  provocative  to  combat. 
It  has  excited  the  spirit  and  furnished  the  implements  of  strife.  As 
we  revert  to  the  progress  of  society  in  modern  Europe,  we  find  that 
the  odious  system  of  private  quarrels,  of  hostile  meetings  even  in  the 
street,  continued  so  long  as  men  persevered  in  the  habit  of  wearing 
arms.  Innumerable  families  were  thinned  by  death  received  in  these 
hasty  and  often  unpremeditated  encounters;  and  the  lives  of  scholars 
and  poets  were  often  exposed  to  their  rude  chances.  Marlowe,  "with 
all  his  rare  learning  and  wit,"  perished  ignominiously  under  the 
weapon  of  an  unknown  adversary;  and  Savage,  whose  genius  and  mis 
fortune  inspired  the  friendship  and  the  eulogies  of  Johnson,  was  tried 
for  murder  committed  in  a  sudden  broil.  "  The  expert  swordsman," 
says  Mr.  Jay,  "the  practised  marksman,  is  ever  more  ready  to  en 
gage  in  personal  combats  than  the  man  who  is  unaccustomed  to  the 
use  of  deadly  weapons.  In  those  portions  of  our  country  where  it  is 
supposed  essential  to  personal  safety  to  go  armed  with  pistols  and 
bowie-knives,  mortal  affrays  are  so  frequent  as  to  excite  but  little  at 
tention,  and  to  secure,  with  rare  exceptions,  impunity  to  the  murderer; 
whereas,  at  the  North  and  East,  where  we  are  unprovided  with  such 
facilities  for  taking  life,  comparatively  few  murders  of  the  kind  are 
perpetrated.  We  might,  indeed,  safely  submit  the  decision  of  the 


332  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

principle  we  are  discussing  to  the  calculations  of  pecuniary  interest. 
Let  two  men,  equal  in  age  and  health,  apply  for  an  insurance  on  their 
lives  ;  one  known  to  be  ever  armed  to  defend  his  honor  and  his  life 
against  every  assailant  ;  and  the  other  a  meek,  unresisting  Quaker. 
Can  we  doubt  for  a  moment  which  of  these  men  would  be  deemed  by 
the  insurance  company  most  likely  to  reach  a  good  old  age  ?" 

The  second  of  these  grounds  is  a  part  of  the  unalterable  nature  of 
man,  which  was  recognized  in  early  ages,  though  unhappily  it  has 
been  rarely  made  the  basis  of  intercourse  among  nations.  It  is  an 
expansion  of  the  old  Horatian  adage,  Si  ins  me  jlere,  d&lendum  est 
primum  ipsi  tibi ;  if  you  wish  me  to  weep,  you  must  yourself  first 
weep.  So  are  we  all  knit  together  that  the  feelings  in  our  own  bosom 
awaken  corresponding  feelings  in  the  bosom  of  others;  as  harp  an 
swers  to  harp  in  its  softest  vibrations;  as  deep  responds  to  deep  in  the 
might  of  its  passions.  What  within  us  is  good  invites  the  good  in  our 
brother;  generosity  begets  generosity;  love  wins  love;  peace  secures 
peace;  while  all  within  us  that  is  bad  challenges  the  bad  in  our 
brother;  distrust  engenders  distrust;  hate  provokes  hate;  war  arouses 
war.  Life  is  full  of  illustrations  of  this  beautiful  law.  Even  the  mis 
erable  maniac,  in  whose  mind  the  common  rules  of  conduct  are  over 
thrown,  confesses  its  overruling  power,  and  the  vacant  stare  of  mad 
ness  may  be  illumined  by  a  word  of  love.  The  wild  beasts  confess  it; 
and  what  is  the  interesting  story  of  Orpheus,  whose  music  drew  in  lis 
tening  rapture  the  lions  and  panthers  of  the  forest,  but  an  expression 
of  this  prevailing  law  ? 

Literature  abounds  in  illustrations  of  this  principle.  Looking  back 
to  the  early  dawn  of  the  world  one  of  the  most  touching  scenes  which 
we  behold,  illumined  by  that  auroral  light,  is  the  peaceful  visit  of  the 
aged  Priam  to  the  tent  of  Achilles  to  entreat  the  body  of  his  son. 
The  fierce  combat  has  ended  in  the  death  of  Hector,  whose  unhon- 
ored  corse  the  bloody  Greek  has  already  trailed  behind  his  chariot. 
The  venerable  father,  after  twelve  days  of  grief,  is  moved  to  efforts  to 
regain  the  remains  of  the  Hector  he  had  so  dearly  loved.  He  leaves 
his  lofty  cedarn  chamber,  and  with  a  single  aged  attendant,  unarmed, 
repairs  to  the  Grecian  camp,  by  the  side  of  the  distant  sounding  sea. 
Entering  alone,  he  finds  Achilles  within  his  tent,  in  the  company  of 
two  of  his  chiefs.  He  grasps  his  knees,  and  kisses  those  terrible 
homicidal  hands,  which  had  taken  the  life  of  his  son.  The  heart  of 
the  inflexible,  the  angry,  the  inflamed  Achilles  is  touched  by  the  sight 
which  he  beholds,  and  responds  to  the  feelings  of  Priam.  He  takes 
the  suppliant  by  the  hand,  seats  him  by  his  side,  consoles  his  grief, 
refreshes  his  weary  body,  and  concedes  to  the  prayers  of  a  weak,  un 
armed  old  man  what  all  Troy  in  arms  could  not  win.  In  this  scene 
the  poet,  with  unconscious  power,  has  presented  a  picture  of  the  om- 
ni">otence  of  that  law  of  our  nature,  making  all  mankind  of  kin,  in 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  383 

obedience  to  which  no  word  of  kindness,  no  act  of  confidence,  falls 
idly  to  the  earth. 

Among  the  legendary  passages  of  Roman  history,  perhaps  none 
makes  a  deeper  impression,  than  that  scene,  after  the  Roman  youth 
had  been  consumed  at  Allia,  and  the  invading  Gauls  under  Brennu3 
had  entered  the  city,  where  we  behold  the  venerable  senators  of  the 
Republic,  too  old  to  flee,  and  careless  of  surviving  the  Roman 
name,  seated  each  on  his  curule  chair,  in  a  temple,  unarmed,  looking, 
as  Livy  says,  more  august  than  mortal,  and  with  the  majesty  of  the 
gods.  The  Gauls  gaze  on  them  as  upon  sacred  images,  and  the  band 
of  slaughter,  which  had  ranged  through  the  streets  of  Rome,  is  stayed 
by  the  sight  of  an  assembly  of  unarmed  old  men.  At  length  a  Gaul 
approaches  and  gently  strokes  with  his  hands  the  silver  beard  of  a 
senator,  who,  indignant  at  the  license,  smites  the  barbarian  with  his 
ivory  staff  ;  which  was  the  signal  for  general  vengeance.  Think  you, 
that  a  band  of  savages  could  have  slain  these  senators,  if  the  appeal 
to  force  had  not  first  been  made  by  one  of  their  own  number  ? 

Following  this  sentiment  in  the  literature  of  modern  times  we  find 
its  pervading  presence.  I  will  not  dwell  on  the  examples  which  arise 
to  the  mind.  I  will  allude  only  to  that  scene  in  Swedish  poetry, 
where  Frithiof,  in  deadly  combat  with  Atle,  when  the  falchion  of  the 
latter  broke,  said,  throwing  away  his  own  weapon : — 

Swordless  foeman's  life 

Ne'er  dyed  this  gallant  blade. 

The  two  champions  now  closed  in  mutual  clutch  ;  they  hugged  like 
bears,  says  the  poet; 

'Tis  o'er;  for  Frithiof ?s  matchless  strength 

Has  felled  his  ponderous  size  ; 
And  'neath  that  knee,  at  giant  length, 

Supine  the  Viking  lies. 
"  But  fails  my  sword,  thou  Berserk  swart !" 

The  voice  rang  far  and  wide. 
"  Its  point  should  pierce  thy  inmost  heart, 

Its  hilt  should  drink  the  tide." 
*'  Be  free  to  lift  the  weaponed  hand," 

Undaunted  Atl6  spoke, 
"  Hence,  fearless,  quest  thy  distant  brand  ! 

Thus  I  abide  the  stroke." 

Frithiof  regains  his  sword,  intent  to  close  the  dread  debate,  while  his 
adversary  awaits  the  stroke  ;  but  his  heart  responds  to  the  generous 
courage  of  his  foe  ;  he  cannot  injure  one  who  has  shown  such  con 
fidence  in  him  : — 

This  quelled  his  ire,  this  checked  his  arm, 
Out  stretched  the  hand  of  peace. 

I  cannot  leave  these  illustrations  without  alluding  particularly  to  the 
history  of  the  treatment  of  the  insane,  which  is  full  of  deep  instruction, 
showing  how  strong  in  nature  must  be  the  principle,  which  leads  us  to 


384  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

respond  to  the  conduct  and  feelings  of  others.  When  Pinel  first 
proposed  to  remove  the  heavy  chains  from  the  raving  maniacs  of  the 
hospitals  of  Paris,  he  was  regarded  as  one  who  saw  visions  or 
dreamed  dreams.  His  wishes  were  gratified  at  last  ;  and  the  change 
in  the  conduct  of  his  patients  was  immediate  ;  the  wrinkled  front  of 
evil  passions  was  smoothed  into  the  serene  countenance  of  peace. 
The  old  treatment  by  force  is  now  universally  abandoned  ;  the  law  of 
love  has  taken  its  place  ;  and  all  these  unfortunates  mingle  together, 
unvexed  by  those  restraints,  which  implied  suspicion,  and,  therefore, 
aroused  opposition.  The  warring  propensities,  which  once  filled  with 
confusion  and  strife  the  hospitals  for  the  insane  while  they  were  con 
trolled  by  force,  are  a  dark  but  feeble  type  of  the  present  relations  of 
nations,  on  whose  hands  are  the  heavy  chains  of  military  prepara 
tions,  assimilating  the  world  to  one  great  mad-house  ;  while  the  peace 
and  good-will  which  now  abound  in  these  retreats,  are  the  happy 
emblems  of  what  awaits  the  world  when  it  shall  have  the  wisdom  to 
recognize  the  supremacy  of  the  higher  sentiments  of  our  nature  ;  of 
gentleness,  of  confidence,  of  love  ; 

making  their  future  might 


Magnetic  o'er  their  fixed  untrembling  heart 

I  might  also  dwell  on  the  recent  experience,  so  full  of  delightful 
wisdom,  in  the  treatment  of  the  distant,  degraded  convicts  of  New 
South  Wales,  showing  the  importance  of  confidence  and  kindness  on 
the  part  of  their  overseers,  in  awakening  a  corresponding  sentiment 
even  in  these  outcasts,  from  whose  souls  virtue  seems,  at  first  view,  to 
be  wholly  blotted  out.  Thus  from  all  quarters,  from  the  far-off  past, 
from  the  far-away  Pacific,  from  the  verse  of  the  poet,  from  the  legend 
of  history,  from  the  cell  of  the  mad-house,  from  the  assembly  of  trans 
ported  criminals,  from  the  experience  of  daily  life,  from  the  universal 
heart  of  man,  ascends  the  spontaneous  tribute  to  the  prevailing  power 
of  that  law,  according  to  which  the  human  heart  responds  to  the  feel 
ings  by  which  it  is  addressed,  whether  of  confidence  or  distrust,  of 
love  or  hate 

It  will  be  urged  that  these  instances  are  exceptions  to  the  general 
laws  by  which  mankind  are  governed.  It  is  not  so.  They  are  the  , 
unanswerable  evidence  of  the  real  nature  of  man.  They  reveal  the*' 
divinity  of  humanity,  out  of  which  all  goodness,  all  happiness,  all 
true  greatness  can  alone  proceed.  They  disclose  susceptibilities 
which  are  general,  which  are  confined  to  no  particular  race  of  men,  to 
no  period  of  time,  to  no  narrow  circle  of  knowledge  and  refinement — 
susceptibilities  which  are  present  wherever  two  or  more  human  beings 
(  me  together.  It  is,  then,  on  the  impregnable  ground  of  the  univer 
sal  and  unalterable  nature  of  man,  that  I  place  the  fallacy  of  that 
prejudice,  in  obedience  to  which  in  time  of  peace  we  prepare  for 
war. 


CHARLES   SUMNER.  385 

But  this  prejudice  is  not  only  founded  on  a  misconception  of  the 
nature  of  man  ;  it  is  abhorrent  to  Christianity,  which  teaches  that 
love  is  more  puissant  than  force.  To  the  reflecting  mind  the  omni 
potence  of  God  himself  is  less  discernible  in  the  earthquake  and  the 
storm  than  in  the  gentle  but  quickening  rays  of  the  sun,  and  the  sweet 
descending  dews.  And  he  is  a  careless  observer  who  does  not  recog 
nize  the  superiority  of  gentleness  and  kindness,  as  a  mode  of  exercis 
ing  influence,  or  securing  rights  among  men.  As  the  winds  of 
violence  beat  about  them,  they  hug  those  mantles,  which  they  gladly 
throw  to  the  earth  under  the  genial  warmth  of  a  kindly  sun.  Thus 
far,  nations  have  drawn  their  weapons  from  the  earthly  armories  of 
force  unmindful  of  those  others  of  celestial  temper  from  the  house  of 
love. 

But  Christianity  not  only  teaches  the  superiority  of  love  over  force  ; 
it  positively  enjoins  the  practice  of  the  one,  and  the  rejection  of  the 
other.  It  says  ;  "  Love  your  neighbors  ;"  but  it  does  not  say;  "In 
time  of  peace  rear  the  massive  fortification,  build  the  man  of  war, 
enlist  armies,  train  the  militia,  and  accumulate  military  stores  to  be 
employed  in  future  quarrels  with  your  neighbors."  Its  precepts  go 
still  further.  They  direct  that  we  should  do  unto  others  as  .we  would 
have  them  do  unto  us — a  golden  rule  for  the  conduct  of  nations  as 
well  as  individuals,  called  by  Confucius  the  virtue  of  the  heart,  and 
made  by  him  the  basis  of  the  nine  maxims  of  government  which  he 
presented  to  the  sovereigns  of  his  country  ;  but  how  inconsistent 
with  that  distrust  of  others,  in  wrongful  obedience  to  which  nations, 
in  time  of  peace,  seem  to  sleep  like  soldiers  on  their  arms.  But  its 
precepts  go  still  further.  They  enjoin  patience,  suffering,  forgiveness 
of  evil,  even  the  duty  of  benefiting  a  destroyer,  "  as  the  sandal  wood, 
in  the  instant  of  its  overthrow,  sheds  perfume  on  the  axe  which  fells 
it."  And  can  a  people,  in  whom  this  faith  is  more  than  an  idle  word, 
consent  to  such  enormous  sacrifices  of  money,  in  violation  of  its  plain 
est  precepts  ? 

The  injunction,  "Love  one  another,"  is  applicable  to  nations  as 
well  as  individuals.  It  is  one  of  the  great  laws  of  Heaven.  And 
anyone  may  well  measure  his  nearness  to  God  by  the  degree  to  which 
he  regulates  his  conduct  by  this  truth. 

In  response  to  these  successive  views,  founded  on  considerations  of 
economy,  of  the  true  nature  of  man,  and  of  Christianity,  I  hear  the 
skeptical  note  of  some  defender  of  the  transmitted  order  of  things, 
some  one  who  washes  "to  fight  for  peace,"  saying,  these  views  are 
beautiful  but  visionary;  they  are  in  advance  of  the  age  ;  the  world  is 
not  yet  prepared  for  their  reception.  To  such  persons  (if  there  be 
such),  I  would  say  ;  nothing  can  be  beautiful  that  is  not  true  ;  but 
these  views  are  true  ;  the  time  is  now  come  for  their  reception  ;  now 
is  the  day  and  now  is  the  hour.  Every  effort  to  impede  their  progress 
arrests  the  advancing  hand  on  the  great  dial-plate  of  human  happiness. 


3  86  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

The  name  of  Washington  is  invoked  as  an  authority  for  a  prejudice 
which  economy,  humanity  and  Christianity  all  declare  to  be  false. 
Mighty  and  reverend  as  is  his  name,  more  mighty  and  more  reverend 
is  truth.  The  words  of  counsel  which  he  gave  were  in  accordance 
with  the  spirit  of  his  age, — an  age  which  was  not  shocked  by  the  slave- 
trade.  But  his  lofty  soul,  which  loved  virtue,  and  inculcated  justice 
and  benevolence,  frowns  upon  the  efforts  of  those  who  would  use  his 
authority  as  an  incentive  to  war.  God  forbid  that  his  sacred  charac 
ter  should  be  profanely  stretched,  like  the  skin  of  John  Ziska,  on  a 
militia  drum  to  arouse  the  martial  ardor  of  the  American  people  ! 

It  is  melancholy  to  consider  the  impediments  which  truth  encounters 
on  its  first  appearance.  A  large  portion  of  mankind,  poising  them 
selves  on  the  flagitious  fallacy,  that  whatever  is,  is  right,  avert  their 
countenances  from  all  that  is  inconsistent  with  established  usage.  I 
have  already,  in  another  part  of  this  address,  set  forth  the  superiority 
of  principle  to  any  human  example  ;  I  would  here  repeat  that  the  prac 
tice  of  nations  can  be  no  apology  for  a  system  which  is  condemned  by 
such  principles  as  I  have  now  considered.  Truth  enters  the  world 
like  a  humble  child,  with  few  to  receive  her  ;  it  is  only  when  she  has 
grown  in  years  and  stature,  and  the  purple  flush  of  youthful  strength 
beams  from  her  face,  that  she  is  sought  and  wooed.  It  has  been  thus 
in  all  ages.  Nay,  more  ;  there  is  often  an  irritation  excited  by  her 
presence  ;  and  men  who  are  kind  and  charitable  forget  their  kindness 
and  lose  their  charity  towards  the  unaccustomed  stranger.  It  was  this 
feeling  which  awarded  a  dungeon  to  Galileo,  when  he  declared  that  the 
earth  moved  round  the  sun  ;  which  neglected  the  great  discovery  of 
the  circulation  of  the  blood  by  Harvey  ;  and  which  bitterly  opposed 
the  divine  philanthropy  of  Clarkson,  when  he  first  denounced  the  wick 
edness  of  the  slave-trade.  But  the  rejected  truths  of  to-day  shall  be 
come  the  chief  corner-stones  to  the  next  generation. 

Auspicious  omens  in  the  history  of  the  past  and  in  the  present, 
cheer  us  for  the  future.  The  terrible  wars  of  the  French  Revolution 
were  the  violent  rending  of  the  body  which  preceded  the  exorcism  of 
the  fiend.  Since  the  morning  stars  first  sang  together,  the  world  has 
not  witnessed  a  peace  so  harmonious  and  enduring  as  that  which  now 
blesses  the  Christian  nations.  Great  questions  between  them,  fraught 
with  strife,  and  in  another  age,  sure  heralds  of  war,  are  now  deter 
mined  by  arbitration  or  mediation.  Great  political  movements 
which  only  a  few  short  years  ago  must  have  led  to  forcible  rebel 
lion,  are  now  conducted  by  peaceful  discussion.  Literature,  the 
press,  and  various  societies,  all  join  in  the  holy  work  of  inculcating 
good-will  to  man.  The  spirit  of  humanity  now  pervades  the  best 
writings,  whether  the  elevated  philosophical  inquiries  of  the  vestiges 
of  creation,  the  ingenious  but  melancholy  moralizings  of  the  Story  of 
a  Feather,  or  the  overflowing  raillery  of  Punch.  Genius  can  never  be 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  387 

so  Promethean  as  when  it  bears  the  heavenly  fire  of  love  to  the 
hearths  of  men. 

It  was  Dr.  Johnson,  in  the  last  age,  who  uttered  the  detestable  senti 
ment,  that  he  liked  "  a  good  hater  :  "  the  man  of  this  age  shall  say 
he  likes  "a  good  lover,"  A  poet,  whose  few  verses  will  bear  him  [on 
his  immortal  flight  with  unflagging  wing,  has  given  expression  to  this 
sentiment  in  words  of  uncommon  pathos  and  power : 

He  prayeth  well  who  loveth  well 
All  things,  both  great  and  small. 

He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 
Both  man,  and  bird,  and  beast, 
For  the  dear  God  who  loveth  us, 
He  made  and  loveth  all. 

Every  where  the  ancient  law  of  hate  is  yielding  to  the  law  of  love.  It 
is  seen  in  the  change  of  dress  ;  the  armor  of  complete  steel  was  the 
habiliment  of  the  knight;  and  the  sword  was  an  indispensable  companion 
of  the  gentleman  of  the  last  century;  but  he  would  be  thought  a  madman 
or  a  bully  who  should  wear  either  now.  It  is  seen  in  the  change  of  do 
mestic  architecture ;  the  places  once  chosen  for  castles  or  houses,  were  in 
the  most  savage,  inaccessible  retreats,  where  the  massive  structure  was 
reared,  destined  solely  to  repel  attacks,  and  to  enclose  its  inhabitants. 
The  monasteries  and  churches  were  fortified,  and  girdled  by  towers, 
ramparts  and  ditches,  and  a  child  was  often  stationed  as  a  watchman, — 
not  of  the  night, — but  to  observe  what  passed  at  a  distance,  and  an 
nounce  the  approach  of  the  enemy  !  The  houses  of  the  peaceful  citi 
zens  in  towns  were  castellated,  often  without  so  much  as  an  aperture 
for  light  near  the  ground,  and  with  loop-holes  above,  through 
which  the  shafts  of  the  cross-bow  might  be  aimed.  In  the  system  of 
fortifications  and  preparations  for  war,  nations  act  toward  each  other 
in  the  spirit  of  distrust  and  barbarism,  which  we  have  traced  in  the 
individual,  but  which  he  has  now  renounced.  In  so  doing,  they  take 
counsel  of  the  wild  boar  in  the  fable,  who  whetted  his  tusks  on  a  tree 
of  the  forest,  when  no  enemy  was  near,  saying  that  in  time  of  peace 
he  must  prepare  for  war.  But  has  not  the  time  now  come,  when  man, 
whom  God  created  in  his  own  image,  and  to  whom  He  gave  the  heav 
en-directed  countenance,  shall  cease  to  look  down  to  the  beasts  for 
examples  of  conduct  ? 

We  have  already  offered  our  homage  to  an  early  monarch  of  France, 
for  his  efforts  in  abolishing  the  trial  by  battle  and  in  the  cause  of 
peace.  To  another  monarch  of  France,  in  our  own  day,  a  descendant 
of  St.  Louis,  worthy  of  the  illustrious  lineage,  Louis  Philippe,  be 
longs  the  honest  fame  of  first  publishing  from  the  throne  the  truth, 
that  peace  was  endangered  by  preparations  for  war.  "  The  sentiment, 
or  rather  the  principle,"  he  says,  "that  in  peace  you  must  prepare  for 
war,  is  one  of  difficulty  and  danger,  for  while  we  keep  armies  on  land 


3 88  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

to  preserve  peace,  they  are,  at  the  same  time  incentives  and  instru 
ments  of  war.  He  rejoiced  in  all  efforts  to  preserve  peace,  for  that 
r/as  what  all  need.  He  thought  the  time  was  coming  when  we  shall 
get  rid  entirely  of  war  in  all  civilized  countries."  This  time  has  been 
hailed  by  a  generous  voice  from  the  army  itself,  by  a  Marshal  of 
France,  who  gave  as  a  toast  at  a  public  dinner  in  Paris,  the  following 
Avords  of  salutation  to  a  new  and  approaching  era  of  happiness  :  "  To 
the  pacific  union  of  the  great  human  family,  by  the  association  of  in 
dividuals,  nations  and  races  !  To  the  annihilation  of  war  !  To  the 
transformation  of  destructive  armies  into  corps  of  industrious  laborers, 
Avho  will  consecrate  their  lives  to  the  cultivation  and  embellishment  of 
the  world  !"  Be  it  our  duty  to  speed  this  consummation  ! 

To  William  Penn  belongs  the  distinction,  destined  to  brighten  as 
men  advance  in  virtue,  of  first,  in  human  history,  establishing  the 
law  of  love  as  a  rule  of  conduct  for  the  intercourse  of  nations. 
While  he  recognized  as  a  great  end  of  government,  "  to  support  power 
in  reverence  with  the  people,  and  to  secure  the  people  from  abuse  of 
power,"  he  declined  the  superfluous  protection  of  arms  against  foreign 
force,  and  "aimed  to  reduce  the  savage  nations  by  just  and  gentle 
manners  to  the  love  of  civil  society  and  the  Christian  religion."  His 
serene  countenance,  as  he  stands  with  his  followers  in  what  he  called  the 
sweet  and  clear  air  of  Pennsylvania,  all  unarmed,  beneath  the  spread 
ing  elm,  forming  the  great  treaty  of  friendship  with  the  untutored  In 
dians, — who  fill  with  savage  display  the  surrounding  forest  as  far  as 
the  eye  can  reach, — not  to  wrest  their  lands  by  violence,  but  to  obtain 
them  by  peaceful  purchase,  is,  to  my  mind,  the  proudest  picture  in 
the  history  of  our  country.  "The  great  God,"  said  this  illustrious 
Quaker,  in  his  words  of  sincerity  and  truth,  addressed  to  the  Sachems, 
"  has  written  his  law  in  our  hearts,  by  which  we  are  taught  and  com 
manded  to  love,  and  to  help,  and  to  do  good  to  one  another.  It  is 
not  our  custom  to  use  hostile  weapons  against  our  fellow-creatures, 
for  which  reason  we  have  come  unarmed.  Our  object  is  not  to  do 
injury,  but  to  do  good.  We  have  met,  then,  in  the  broad  pathway  of 
good  faith  and  good  will,  so  that  no  advantage  can  be  taken  on  either 
side,  but  all  is  to  be  openness,  brotherhood  and  love;  while  all  are  to 
be  treated  as  of  the  same  flesh  and  blood."  These  are,  indeed,  words 
of  true  greatness.  "  Without  any  carnal  weapons,"  says  one  of  his 
companions,  "  we  entered  the  land,  and  inhabited  therein  as  safe  as 
if  there  had  been  thousands  of  garrisons."  "This  little  state,"  says 
Oldmixon,  "subsisted  in  the  midst  of  six  Indian  nations,  without  so 
much  as  a  militia  for  its  defence."  A  great  man,  worthy  of  the  man 
tle  of  Penn,  the  venerable  philanthropist,  Clarkson,  in  his  life  of  the 
founder  of  Pennsylvania,  says,  "  The  Pennsylvanians  became  armed, 
though  without  arms;  they  became  strong,  though  without  strength; 
they  became  safe,  without  the  ordinary  means  of  safety.  The  consta 
ble's  staff  was  th^  -»nly  instrument  of  authority  amongst  them  for  the 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  389 

greater  part  of  a  century,  and  never,  during  the  administration  of 
Penn,  or  that  of  his  proper  successors,  was  there  a  quarrel  or  a  war." 

Greater  than  the  divinity  that  doth  hedge  a  king,  is  the  divinity  that 
encompasses  the  righteous  man,  and  the  righteous  people.  The  flow 
ers  of  prosperity  smiled  in  the  blessed  footprints  of  William  Penn. 
His  people  were  unmolested  and  happy,  while  (sad  but  true  contrast!) 
those  of  other  colonies,  acting  upon  the  policy  of  the  world,  building 
forts,  and  showing  themselves  in  arms,  not  after  receiving  provoca 
tion,  but  merely  in  the  anticipation,  or  from  the  fear,  of  insults  or 
danger,  were  harassed  by  perpetual  alarms,  and  pierced  by  the  sharp 
arrows  of  savage  war. 

This  pattern  of  a  Christian  commonwealth  never  fails  to  arrest  the 
admiration  of  all  who  contemplate  its  beauties.  It  drew  an  epigram 
of  eulogy  from  the  caustic  pen  of  Voltaire,  and  has  been  fondly 
painted  by  many  virtuous  historians.  Every  ingenuous  soul  in  our 
day  offers  his  willing  tribute  to  those  celestial  graces  of  justice  and 
humanity,  by  the  side  of  which  the  flinty  hardness  of  the  Pilgrims  of 
Plymouth  Rock  seems  earthly  and  coarse. 

But  let  us  not  confine  ourselves  to  barren  words  in  recognition  of 
virtue.  While  we  see  the  right,  and  approve  it,  too,  let  us  dare  to 
pursue  it.  Let  us  now,  in  this  age  of  civilization,  surrounded  by 
Christian  nations,  be  willing  to  follow  the  successful  example  of 
William  Penn,  surrounded  by  savages.  Let  us,  while  we  recognize 
those  transcendent  ordinances  of  God,  the  law  of  right  and  the  law 
of  love, — the  double  suns  which  illumine  the  moral  universe, — aspire 
to  the  true  glory,  and  what  is  higher  than  glory,  the  great  good,  of 
taking  the  lead  in  the  disarming  of  the  nations.  Let  us  abandon  the 
system  of  preparation  for  war  in  time  of  peace,  as  irrational,  unchris 
tian,  vainly  prodigal  of  expense,  and  having  a  direct  tendency  to  ex 
cite  the  very  evil  against  which  it  professes  to  guard.  Let  the  enor 
mous  means  thus  released  from  iron  hands,  be  devoted  to  labors  of 
beneficence.  Our  battlements  shall  be  schools,  hospitals,  colleges  and 
churches;  our  arsenals  shall  be  libraries;  our  navy  shall  be  peaceful 
ships,  on  errands  of  perpetual  commerce;  our  army  shall  be  the  teach 
ers  of  youth  and  the  ministers  of  religion.  This  is  indeed,  the  cheap 
defence  of  nations.  In  such  entrenchments  what  Christian  soul  can 
be  touched  with  fear.  Angels  of  the  Lord  shall  throw  over  the  land 
an  invisible,  but  impenetrable  panoply  : 

Or  if  virtue  feeble  were 

Heaven  itself  would  stoop  to  her. 

At  the  thought  of  such  a  change  in  policy,  the  imagination  loses  it 
self  in  the  vain  effort  to  follow  the  various  streams  of  happiness, 
which  gush  forth  as  from  a  thousand  hills.  Then  shall  the  naked  be 
clothed  and  the  hungry  fed.  Institutions  of  science  and  learning  shall 
crown  every  hill-top;  hospitals  for  the  sick,  arid  other  retreats  for  the 


39°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM.          .-..  V 

unfortunate  children  of  the  world,  for  all  who  suffer  in  any  way,  in 
mind,  body  or  estate,  shall  nestle  in  every  valley;  while  the  spires  oi1 
new  churches  shall  leap  exulting  to  the  skies.  The  whole  land  shal: 
bear  witness  to  the  change;  art  shall  confess  it  in  the  new  inspiratior 
of  the  canvas  and  the  marble;  the  harp  of  the  poet  shall  proclaim  it 
in  a  loftier  rhyme.  Above  all,  the  heart  of  man  shall  bear  witnes? 
to  it,  in  the  elevation  of  his  sentiments,  in  the  expansion  of  his  affec 
tions,  in  his  devotion  to  the  highest  truth,  in  his  appreciation  of  true 
greatness.  The  eagle  of  our  country,  without  the  terror  of  his  beak, 
and  dropping  the  forceful  thunderbolt  from  his  pounces,  shall  soar 
with  the  olive  of  peace,  into  untried  realms  of  ether,  nearer  to  the  sun. 

And  here  let  us  review  the  field  over  which  we  have  passed.  We 
have  beheld  war,  a  mode  of  determining  justice  between  nations,  hav 
ing  its  origin  in  an  appeal,  not  to  the  moral  and  intellectual  part  of 
man's  nature,  distinguishing  him  from  the  beasts,  but  to  that  low  part 
of  his  nature,  which  he  has  in  common  with  the  beast;  we  have  con 
templated  its  infinite  miseries  to  the  human  race;  we  have  weighed  its 
sufficiency  as  a  mode  of  determining  justice  between  nations,  and 
found  that  it  is  a  rude  appeal  to  force  or  a  gigantic  game  of  chance, 
in  which  God's  children  are  profanely  dealt  with  as  a  pack  of  cards, 
while  it  is  unnatural  and  irrational  wickedness,  it  is  justly  to  be 
likened  to  the  monstrous  and  impious  usage  of  trial  by  battle  which 
disgraced  the  dark  ages,  thus  showing  that,  in  this  age  of  boasted  civ 
ilization,  justice  between  nations  is  determined  by  the  same  rules  of 
barbarous  brutal  force  which  once  controlled  the  relations  between  in 
dividuals.  We  have  next  considered  the  various  prejudices  by  which 
war  is  sustained;  founded  on  a  false  belief  in  its  necessity;  on  the 
practice  of  nations  past  and  present;  on  the  infidelity  of  the  Christian 
church;  on  a  false  idea  of  honor;  on  an  exaggerated  idea  of  the  duties 
of  patriotism;  and  lastly  that  monster  prejudice,  which  draws  its  vam 
pire  life  from  the  vast  preparations  in  time  of  peace  for  war;  dwelling 
at  the  last  stage  upon  the  thriftless,  irrational  and  unchristian  charac 
ter  of  these  preparations,  and  catching  a  vision  of  the  exalted  good 
that  will  be  achieved  when  our  country,  learning  wisdom,  shall  aim  at 
the  true  grandeur  of  peace. 

And  now,  if  it  be  asked  why,  on  this  national  anniversary,  in  the 
consideration  of  the  true  grandeur  of  nations,  I  have  thus  dwelt  singly 
and  exclusively  on  war,  it  is,  because  war  is  utterly  and  irreconcilably 
inconsistent  with  true  greatness.  Thus  far  mankind  has  worshipped 
in  military  glory,  an  idol,  compared  with  which  the  colossal  images  of 
ancient  Babylon  or  modern  Hindostan  are  but  toys;  and  we,  in  this 
blessed  day  of  light,  in  this  blessed  land  of  freedom,  are  among  the 
idolaters.  The  Heaven-descended  injunction,  know  thyself,  still  speaks 
to  an  ignorant  world  from  the  distant  letters  of  gold  at  Delphi;  know 
thyself;  know  that  the  moral  nature  is  the  most  noble  part  of  man; 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  391 

transcending  far  that  part  which  is  the  seat  of  passion,  strife  and  war; 
nobler  than  the  intellect  itself.  Suppose  war  to  be  decided  by  force, 
where  is  the  glory?  Suppose  it  to  be  decided  by  chance,  where  is  the 
glory?  No;  true  greatness  consists  in  imitating  as  near  as  is  possible 
for  finite  man,  the  perfections  of  an  Infinite  Creator;  above  all,  in 
cultivating  those  highest  perfections,  justice  and  love;  justice,  which 
like  that  of  St.  Louis,  shall  not  swerve  to  the  right  hand  or  to  the  left; 
love,  which  like  that  of  William  Penn,  shall  regard  all  mankind  of 
kin.  "  God  is  angry,"  says  Plato,  "when  anyone  censures  a  man 
like  himself,  or  praises  a  man  of  an  opposite  character.  And  the  God 
like  man  is  the  good  man."  And  again,  in  another  of  those  lovely 
dialogues,  vocal  with  immortal  truth,  "  Nothing  resembles  God  more 
than  that  man  among  us  who  has  arrived  at  the  highest  degree  of  jus 
tice."  The  true  greatness  of  nations  is  in  those  qualities  which  con 
stitute  the  greatness  of  the  individual.  It  is  not  to  be  found  in  extent 
of  territory;  nor  in  vastness  of  population,  nor  in  wealth;  not  in  forti 
fications,  or  armies,  or  navies;  not  in  the  phosphorescent  glare  of  fields 
of  battle;  not  in  Golgothas,  though  covered  by  monuments  that  kiss 
the  clouds;  for  all  these  are  the  creatures  and  representatives  of  those 
qualities  of  our  nature,  which  are  unlike  anything  in  God's  nature. 

Nor  is  the  greatness  of  nations  to  be  found  in  triumphs  of  the  in 
tellect  alone,  in  literature,  learning,  science,  or  art.  The  polished 
Greeks,  the  world's  masters  in  the  delights  of  language,  and  in  range 
of  thought,  and  the  commanding  Romans,  overawing  the  earth  with 
their  power,  were  little  more  than  splendid  savages;  and  the  age  of 
Louis  XIV.  of  France,  spanning  so  long  a  period  of  ordinary  worldly 
magnificence,  thronged  by  marshals  bending  under  military  laurels, 
enlivened  by  the  unsurpassed  comedy  of  Moliere,  dignified  by  the 
tragic  genius  of  Corneille,  illumined  by  the  splendors  of  Bossuet,  is 
degraded  by  immoralities  that  cannot  be  mentioned  without  a  blush, 
by  a  heartlessness  in  comparison  with  which  the  ice  of  Nova  Zembla 
is  warm,  and  by  a  succession  of  deeds  of  injustice  not  to  be  washed 
out  by  the  tears  of  all  the  recording  angels  of  heaven. 

The  true  greatness  of  a  nation  cannot  be  in  triumphs  of  the  intel 
lect  alone.  Literature  and  art  may  widen  the  sphere  of  its  influence; 
they  may  adorn  it;  but  they  are  in  their  nature  but  accessories.  The 
true  grandeur  of  humanity  is  in  moral  elevation,  sustained,  enlight 
ened,  and  decorated  by  the  intellect  of  man.  The  truest  tokens  of 
this  grandeur  in  a  state  are  the  diffusion  of  the  greatest  happiness 
among  the  greatest  number,  and  that  passionless  God-like  Justice, 
which  controls  the  relations  of  the  state  to  other  states,  and  to  all  the 
people,  who  are  committed  to  its  charge. 

But  war  crushes  with  bloody  heel  all  justice,  all  happiness,  all  that 
is  God-like  in  man.  "  It  is,"  says  the  eloquent  Robert  Hall,  "  the 
temporary  repeal  of  all  the  principles  of  virtue."  True,  it  cannot  be 
disguised,  that  there  are  passages  in  its  dreary  annals  cheered  by 


39 2  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

deeds  of  generosity  and  sacrifice.  But  the  virtues  which  shed  their 
charm  over  its  horrors  are  all  borrowed  of  peace ;  they  are  emanations 
of  the  spirit  of  love,  which  is  so  strong  in  the  heart  of  -man,  that  it 
survives  the  rudest  assaults.  The  flowers  of  gentleness,  of  kindli 
ness,  of  fidelity,  of  humanity,  which  flourish  in  unregarded  luxuri 
ance  in  the  rich  meadows  of  peace,  receive  unwonted  admiration  when 
we  discern  them  in  war,  like  violets  shedding  their  perfume  on  the 
perilous  edges  of  the  precipice,  beyond  the  smiling  borders  of  civili 
zation.  God  be  praised  for  all  the  examples  of  magnanimous  virtue 
which  he  has  vouchsafed  to  mankind  !  God  be  praised  that  the  Ro 
man  Emperor,  about  to  start  on  a  distant  expedition  of  war,  encom 
passed  by  squadrons  of  cavalry  and  by  golden  eagles  which  moved  in 
the  winds,  stooped  from  his  saddle  to  listen  to  the  prayer  of  the  hum 
ble  widow,  demanding  justice  for  the  death  of  her  son  !  God  be 
praised  that  Sydney,  on  the  field  of  battle,  gave  with  dying  hand  the 
cup  of  cold  water  to  the  dying  soldier  !  That  single  act  of  self-for 
getful  sacrifice  has  consecrated  the  fenny  field  of  Zutphen,  far,  oh!  far 
beyond  its  battle;  it  has  consecrated  tj\y  name,  gallant  Sydney,  beyond 
any  feat  of  thy  sword,  beyond  any  triumph  of  thy  pen.  But  there  are 
hands  outstretched  elsewhere  than  on  fields  of  blood,  for  so  little  as  a 
cup  of  cold  water;  the  world  is  full  of  opportunities  for  deeds  of  kind 
ness.  Let  me  not  be  told,  then,  of  the  virtues  of  war.  Let  not  the 
acts  of  generosity  and  sacrifice,  which  have  triumphed  on  its  fields,  be 
invoked  in  its  defence.  In  the  words  of  Oriental  imagery,  the  poison 
ous  tree,  though  watered  by  nectar,  can  produce  only  the  fruit  of 
death  ! 

As  we  cast  our  eyes  over  the  history  of  nations  we  discern  with  hor 
ror  the  succession  of  murderous  slaughters  by  which  their  progress 
has  been  marked.  As  the  hunter  traces  the  wild  beast,  when  pursued 
to  his  lair,  by  the  drops  of  blood  on  the  earth,  so  we  follow  man,  faint, 
weary,  staggering  with  wounds,  through  the  black  forest  of  the  past, 
which  he  has  reddened  with  his  gore.  Oh  !  let  it  not  be  in  the  future 
ages  as  in  those  which  we  now  contemplate.  Let  the  grandeur  of  man 
be  discerned  in  the  blessings  which  .he  has  secured;  in  the  good  he 
has  accomplished;  in  the  triumphs  of  benevolence  and  justice;  in  the 
establishment  of  perpetual  peace. 

As  the  ocean  washes  every  shore,  and  clasps,  with  all-embracing 
arms,  every  land,  while  it  bears  on  its  heaving  bosom  the  products  of 
various  climes;  so  peace  surrounds,  protects,  and  upholds  all  other 
blessings.  Without  it  commerce  is  vain,  the  ardor  of  industry  is  re 
strained,  happiness  is  blasted,  virtue  sickens  and  dies. 

And  peace  has  its  own  peculiar  victories,  in  comparison  with  which 
Marathon  and  Bannockburn  and  Bunker  Hill,  fields  held  sacred  in  the 
history  of  human  freedom,  shall  lose  their  lustre.  Our  own  Wash 
ington  rises  to  a  truly  heavenly  stature — not  when  we  follow  him  over 
the  ice  of  the  Delaware  to  the  capture  of  Trenton — not  when  we  be- 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  393 

hold  him  x'ictorious  over  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown;  but  when  we  regard 
him,  in  noble  deference  to  justice,  refusing  the  kingly  crown  which  a 
faithless  soldiery  proffered,  and  at  a  later  day,  upholding  the  peaceful 
neutrality  of  the  country,  while  he  received  unmoved  the  clamor  of 
the  people  wickedly  crying  for  war.  What  glory  of  battle  in  Eng 
land's  annals  will  not  fade  by  the  side  of  that  great  act  of  justice,  by 
which  her  legislature,  at  a  cost  of  one  hundred  million  dollars,  gave 
freedom  to  eight  hundred  thousand  slaves  !  And  when  the  day  shall 
come  (may  these  eyes  be  gladdened  by  its  beams  !)  that  shall  witness 
an  act  of  greater  justice  still,  the  peaceful  emancipation  of  three  mil 
lions  of  our  fellow-men,  "  guilty  of  a  skin  not  colored  as  our  own," 
now  held  in  gloomy  bondage,  under  the  Constitution  of  our  country, 
then  shall  there  be  a  victory,  in  comparison  with  which  that  of  Bunker 
,Hill  shall  be  as  a  farthing-candle  held  up  to  the  sun.  That  victory 
shall  need  no  monument  of  stone.  It  shall  be  written  on  the  grateful 
hearts  of  uncounted  multitudes,  that  shall  proclaim  it  to  the  latest 
generation.  It  shall  be  one  of  the  great  land-marks  of  civilization; 
nay  more,  it  shall  be  one  of  the  links  in  the  golden  chain  by  which 
humanity  shall  connect  itself  with  the  throne  of  God. 

As  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  are  higher  than  the  grass  of  the  valley; 
as  the  heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth;  as  man  is  higher  than  the 
beasts  of  the  field;  as  the  angels  are  higher  than  man;  as  he  that 
ruleth  his  spirit  is  higher  than  he  that  taketh  a  city;  so  are  the 
virtues  and  victories  of  peace  higher  than  the  virtues  and  victories  of 
war. 

Far  be  from  us,  fellow-citizens,  on  this  anniversary,  the  illusions  of 
national  freedom  in  which  we  are  too  prone  to  indulge.  We  have  but 
half  done,  when  we  have  made  ourselves  free.  Let  not  the  scornful 
taunt  be  directed  at  us:  "  They  wish  to  be  free;  but  know  not  how  to 
be  just."  Freedom  is  not  an  end  in  itself;  but  a  means  only;  a  means 
of  securing  justice  and  happiness,  the  real  end  and  aim  of  states,  as 
of  every  human  heart.  It  becomes  us  to  inquire  earnestly  if  there  is 
not  much  to  be  done  by  which  these  can  be  promoted.  If  I  have  suc 
ceeded  in  impressing  on  your  minds  the  truths,  which  I  have  upheld 
to-day,  you  will  be  ready  to  join  in  efforts  for  the  abolition  of  war, 
and  of  all  preparations  for  war,  as  indispensable  to  the  true  grandeur 
of  our  country. 

To  this  great  work  let  me  summon  you.  That  future  which  filled 
the  lofty  visions  of  the  sages  and  bards  of  Greece  and  Rome,  which 
was  foretold  by  the  prophets  and  heralded  by  the  evangelists,  when 
man  in  happy  isles,  or  in  a  new  paradise,  shall  confess  the  loveliness 
of  peace,  may  be  secured  by  your  care,  if  not  for  yourselves,  at  least 
for  your  children.  Believe  that  you  can  do  it,  and  you  can  do  it.  The 
true  golden  age  is  before  you,  not  behind  you.  If  man  has  been 
driven  once  from  Paradise,  while  an  angel  with  a  flaming  sword  for 
bade  his  return,  there  is  another  Paradise,  even  on  earth,  which  he 


394  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

may  form  for  himself,  by  the  cultivation  of  the  kindly  virtues  of  life, 
where  the  confusion  of  tongues  shall  be  dissolved  in  the  union  of 
hearts,  where  there  shall  be  a  perpetual  jocund  spring,  and  sweet 
strains  borne  on  the  "  odoriferous  wings  of  gentle  gales,"  more  pleas 
ant  than  the  Vale  of  Tempe,  richer  than  the  garden  of  the  Hesperides, 
with  no  dragon  to  guard  its  golden  fruit. 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  the  age  does  not  demand  this  work.  The 
mighty  conquerors  of  the  past,  from  their  fiery  sepulchres,  demand  it; 
the  blood  of  millions  unjustly  shed  in  war  crying  from  the  ground  de 
mands  it;  the  voices  of  all  good  men  demand  it;  the  conscience  even 
of  the  soldier  whispers  "  peace."  There  are  considerations,  springing 
from  our  situation  and  condition,  which  fervently  invite  us  to  take  the 
lead  in  this  great  work.  To  this  should  bend  the  patriotic  ardor  of 
the  land;  the  ambition  of  the  statesman;  the  efforts  of  the  scholar; 
the  pervasive  influence  of  the  press;  the  mild  persuasion  of  the  sanc 
tuary;  the  early  teachings  of  the  school.  Here,  in  ampler  ether  and 
diviner  air,  are  untried  fields  for  exalted  triumphs,  more  truly  worthy 
the  American  name,  than  any  snatched  from  rivers  of  blood.  War  is 
known  as  the  last  reason  of  kings.  Let  it  be  no  reason  of  our  repub 
lic.  Let  us  renounce  and  throw  off  forever  the  yoke  of  a  tyranny 
more  oppressive  than  any  in  the  annals  of  the  world.  As  those 
standing  on  the  mountain-tops  first  discern  the  coming  beams  of 
morning,  let  us,  from  the  vantage-ground  of  liberal  institutions,  first 
recognize  the  ascending  sun  of  a  new  era  !  Lift  high  the  gates,  and 
let  the  King  of  glory  in — the  King  of  true  glory — of  peace.  I  catch 
the  last  words  of  music  from  the  lips  of  innocence  and  beauty — 

And  let  the  whole  earth  be  filled  with  his  glory  ! 

It  is  a  beautiful  picture  in  Grecian  story,  that  there  was  at  least  one 
spot,  the  small  island  of  Delos,  dedicated  to  the  gods,  and  kept  at  all 
times  sacred  from  war,  where  the  citizens  of  hostile  countries  met  and 
united  in  a  common  worship.  So  let  us  dedicate  our  broad  country  ! 
The  temple  of  honor  shall  be  surrounded  by  the  temple  of  concord, 
so  that  the  former  can  be  entered  only  through  the  portals  of  the  lat 
ter  ;  the  horn  of  abundance  shall  overflow  at  its  gates  ;  the  angel 
of  religion  shall  be  the  guide  over  its  steps  of  flashing  adamant;  while 
within  justice,  returned  to  the  earth  from  her  long  exile  in  the  skies, 
shall  rear  her  serene  and  majestic  front.  And  the  future  chiefs  of  the 
republic,  destined  to  uphold  the  glories  of  a  new  era,  unspotted  by 
human  biood,  shall  be  "  the  first  in  peace,  and  the  first  in  the  hearts 
of  their  countrymen." 

But  while  we  seek  these  blissful  glories  for  ourselves,  let  us  strive 
to  extend  them  to  other  lands.  Let  the  bugles  sound  the  truce  of  God 
to  the  whole  world  forever.  Let  the  selfish  boast  of  the  Spartan  wo 
men  become  the  grand  chorus  of  mankind,  that  they  have  never  seen 
the  smoke  of  an  enemy's  camp.  Let  the  iron  belt  of  martial  music 


KUFUS  CHOATE.  395 

which  now  encompasses  the  earth,  be  exchanged  for  the  golden  cesms 
of  peace,  clothing  all  with  celestial  beauty.  History  dwells  with 
fondness  on  the  reverent  homage,  that  was  bestowed,  by  massacring 
soldiers,  on  the  spot  occupied  by  the  sepulchre  of  the  Lord.  Vain 
man  !  to  restrain  his  regard  to  a  few  feet  of  sacred  mould  !  The 
wfloTe  earth  is  the  sepulchre  of  the  Lord;  nor  can  any  righteous  man 
profane  any  part  thereof.  Let  us  recognize  this  truth;  and  now,  on 
this  sabbath  of  our  country,  lay  a -new  stone  in  the  grand  temple  fif 
Universal  peace,  whose  dome  shall  be  as  lofty  as  the  firmament  of 
heaven,  as  broad  and  comprehensive  as  the  earth  itself. 


EULOGY  ON  WEBSTER. 

RUFUS  CHOATE. 
Dartmouth  College,  July  27,  1853. 

It  would  be  a  strange  neglect  of  a  beautiful  and  approved  custom  of 
the  schools  of  learning,  and  of  one  of  the  most  pious  and  appropriate 
of  the  offices  of  literature,  if  the  college  in  which  the  intellectual  life 
of  Daniel  Webster  began,  and  to  which  his  name  imparts  charm  and 
illustration,  should  give  no  formal  expression  to  her  grief  in  the  com 
mon  sorrow  ;  if  she  should  not  draw  near,  of  the  most  sad,  in  the  pro 
cession  of  the  bereaved,  to  the  tomb  at  the  sea,  nor  find,  in  all  her 
classic  shades,  one  affectionate  and  grateful  leaf  to  set  in  the  garland 
with  which  they  have  bound  the  brow  of  her  child,  the  mightiest  de 
parted.  Others  mourn  and  praise  him  by  his  more  distant  and  more 
general  tides  to  fame  and  remembrance  ;  his  supremacy  of  intellect, 
his  statesmanship  of  so  many  years,  his  eloquence  of  reason  and  of  the 
heart,  his  love  of  country  incorruptible,  conscientious,  and  ruling  every 
hour  and  act  ;  that  greatness  combined  of  genius,  of  character,  of 
manner,  of  place,  of  achievement,  which  was  just  now  among  us,  and 
is  not,  and  yet  lives  still  and  forever  more.  You  come,  his  cherished 
mother,  to  own  a  closer  tie,  to  indulge  an  emotion  more  personal  and 
more  fond — grief  and  exultation  contending  for  mastery,  as  in  the 
bosom  of  the  desolated  parent,  whose  tears  could  not  hinder  him  from 
exclaiming,  "  I  would  not  exchange  my  dead  son  for  any  living  one  of 
Christendom." 

Many  places  in  our  American  world  have  spoken  his  eulogy.  To 
all  places  the  service  was  befitting,  for  his  renown,  is  it  not  of  the 
treasures  of  the  whole  country  ?  To  some  it  belonged  with  a  strong 
local  propriety,  to  discharge  it.  In  the  halls  of  Congress,  where  the 
majestic  form  seems  ever  to  stand  and  the  tones  to  linger,  the  deco 
rated  scene  of  his  larger  labors  and  most  diffusive  glory;  in  the  courts 
of  law,  to  whose  gladsome  light  he  loved  to  return — putting  on  again 


AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

the  robes  of  that  profession,  ancient  as  magistracy,  noble  as  virtue, 
necessary  as  justice, — in  which  he  found  the  beginning  of  his  honors  ; 
and  in  Faneuil  Hall,  whose  air  breathes  and  burns  of  him  ;  in  the 
commercial  cities,  to  whose  pursuits  his  diplomacy  secured  a  peaceful 
sea  ;  in  the  cities  of  the  inland,  around  which  his  capacious  public 
affections,  and  wise  discernment,  aimed  ever  to  develop  the  uncounted 
resources  of  that  other,  and  that  larger,  and  that  newer  America  ;  in 
the  pulpit,  whose  place  among  the  higher  influences  which  exalt  a 
state,  our  guide  in  life,  our  consolation  in  death,  he  appreciated  pro 
foundly,  and  vindicated  by  weightiest  argument  and  testimony,  of 
whose  offices  it  is  among  the  fittest,  to  mark  and  point  the  moral  of 
the  great  things  of  the  world,  the  excellency  of  dignity,  and  the  excel 
lency  of  power  passing  away  as  the  pride  of  the  wave, — passing  from 
our  eye  to  take  on  immortality  ;  in  these  places,  and  such  as  these, 
there  seemed  a  reason  beyond,  and  other,  than  the  universal  calamity, 
for  such  honors  of  the  grave.  But  if  so,  how  fit  a  place  is  this  for 
such  a  service  !  We  are  among  the  scenes  where  the  youth  of  Web 
ster  awoke  first,  and  fully,  to  the  life  of  the  mind.  We  stand,  as  it 
were,  at  the  sources,  physical,  social,  moral,  intellectual,  of  that  ex 
ceeding  greatness.  Some  now  here  saw  that  youth  ;  almost  it  was 
yours,  Niluin  pannini  videre.  Some,  one  of  his  instructors  certainly, 
some  possibly  of  his  class-mates,  or  nearest  college  friends,  some  of 
the  books  he  read,  some  of  the  apartments  in  which  he  studied  are 
here.  We  can  almost  call  up  from  their  habitations  in  the  past,  or  in 
the  fancy,  the  whole  spiritual  circle  which  environed  that  time  of  his 
life  ;  the  opinions  he  had  embraced  ;  the  theories  of  mind,  of  reli 
gion,  of  morals,  of  philosophy,  to  which  he  had  surrendered  himself  ; 
the  canons  of  taste  and  criticism  which  he  had  accepted  ;  the  great 
authors  whom  he  loved  best  ;  the  trophies  which  began  to  disturb  his 
sleep  ;  the  facts  of  history  which  he  had  learned,  believed  and  began 
to  interpret ;  the  shapes  of  hope  and  fear  in  which  imagination  began 
to  bring  before  him  the  good  and  evil  of  the  future.  Still  the  same 
outward  world  is  around  you,  and  above  you.  The  sweet  and  solemn 
flow  of  the  river  gleaming  through  intervals  here  and  there ;  mar 
gins  and  samples  of  the  same  old  woods,  but  thinned  and  retir 
ing  ;  the  same  range  of  green  hills  yonder,  tolerant  or  culture  to 
the  top,  but  shaded  then  by  primeval  forests,  on  whose  crest  the 
last  rays  of  sun-set  lingered  ;  the  summit  of  Ascutney  ;  the  great 
northern  light  that  never  sets;  the  constellations  that  walk  around, 
and  watch  the  pole;  the  same  nature,  undecayed,  unchanging,  is 
here.  Almost,  the  idolatries  of  the  old  Paganism  grown  intelligible. 
"  Magnorum  fluminum  capita  veneramur,"  exclaims  Seneca.  "  Subita 
et  ex  abrupto  vasti  amnis  ertiptio  aras  habet  /"  We  stand  at  the  foun 
tain  of  a  stream;  we  stand  rather  at  the  place  where  a  stream,  sudden, 
and  from  hidden  springs,  bursts  to  Ifght;  and  whence  we  can  follow  it 
along  and  down,  as  we  might  our  own  Connecticut,  and  trace  its  re- 


RUFUS   CHOATE.  397 

splendant  pathway  to  the  sea;  and  we  venerate,  and  would  almost 
build  altars  here.  If  I  may  adopt  the  lofty  language  of  one  of  the  ad 
mirers  of  William  Pitt,  we  come  naturally  to  this  place,  as  if  we  could 
thus  recall  every  circumstance  of  splendid  preparation  which  con 
tributed  to  fit  the  great  man  for  the  scene  of  his  glory.  We  come,  as 
if  better  here  than  elsewhere;  "we  could  watch,  fold  by  fold,  the 
bracing  on  of  his  vulcanian  panoply,  and  observe  with  pleased  anxiety, 
the  leading  forth  of  that  chariot  which,  borne  on  irresistible  wheels, 
and  drawn  by  steeds  of  immortal  race,  is  to  crush  the  necks  of  the 
mighty,  and  sweep  away  the  serried  strength  of  armies." 

And  therefore,  it  were  fitter  that  I  should  ask  of  you,  than  speak 
to  you,  concerning  him.  Little  indeed  anywhere  can  be  added  now 
to  that  wealth  of  eulogy  that  has  been  heaped  upon  his  tomb.  Before 
he  died  even,  renowned  in  two  hemispheres,  in  ours  he  seemed  to  be 
known  with  a  universal  nearness  of  knowledge.  He  walked  so  long 
and  so  conspicuously  before  the  general  eye;  his  actions,  his  opinions, 
on  all  things,  which  had  been  large  enough  to  agitate  the  public  mind 
for  the  last  thirty  years  and  more,  had  had  importance  and  conse 
quences  so  remarkable — anxiously  awaited  for,  passionately  can 
vassed,  not  adopted  always  into  the  particular  measure,  or  deciding 
the  particular  vote  of  government  of  the  country,  yet  sinking  deep  into 
the  reason  of  the  people — a  stream  of  influence  whose  fruits  it  is  yet 
too  soon  for  the  political  philosophy  to  appreciate  completely;  an  im 
pression  of  his  extraordinary  intellectual  endowments,  and  of  their 
peculiar  superiority  in  that  most  imposing  and  intelligible  of  all  forms 
of  manifestation,  the  moving  of  others'  minds  by  speech-  -this  impres 
sion  had  grown  so  universal  and  fixed,  and  it  had  kindled  curiosity  to 
hear  him  and  read  him,  so  wide  and  so  largely  indulged;  his  individu 
ality  altogether  was  so  absolute  and  so  pronounced,  the  force  of  will 
no  less  than  the  power  of  genius;  the  exact  type  and  fashion  of  his 
mind,  not  less  than  its  general  magnitude,  were  so  distinctly  shown 
through  his  musical  and  transparent  style;  the  exterior  of  the  man,  the 
grand  mastery  of  brow  and  eye,  the  deep  tones,  the  solemnity,  the 
sovereignty,  as  of  those  who  would  build  states,  "where  every  power 
and  every  grace  did  seem  to  set  its  sea,l,"  had  been  made,  by  personal 
observation,  by  description,  by  the  exaggeration  even  of  those  who 
had  felt  the  spell,  by  art,  the  daguerrotype  and  picture  and  statue,  so 
familiar  to  the  American  eye,  graven  on  the  memory  like  the  Wash 
ington  of  Stuart;  the  narrative  of  the  mere  incidents  of  his  life  had 
been  so  often  told — by  some  so  authentically  and  with  such  skill — and 
had  been  so  literally  committed  to  heart,  that  when  he  died  there 
seemed  to  be  little  left  but  to  say  when  and  how  his  change  came; 
with  what  dignity,  with  what  possession  of  himself,  with  what  loving 
thought  for  others,  with  what  gratitude  to  God,  uttered  with  unfalter 
ing  voice,  that  it  was  appointed  to  him  there  to  die;  to  say  how  thus, 
leaning  on  the  rod  and  staff  of  the  promise,  he  took  his  way  into  the 


39^  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

great  darkness  undismayed,  till  death  should  be  swallowed  up  of  life; 
and  then  to  relate  how  they  laid  him  in  that  simple  grave,  and  turning 
and  pausing  and  joining  their  voices  to  the  voices  of  the  sea,  bade  him 
hail  and  farewell. 

And  yet  I  hardly  know  what  there  is  in  public  biography,  what  there 
is  in  literature,  to  be  compared,  in  its  kind,  with  the  variety  and  beauty 
and  adequacy  of  the  series  of  discourses  through  which  the  love  and 
grief,  and  deliberate  and  reasoning  admiration  of  America  for  this 
great  man,  have  been  uttered.  Little,  indeed,  there  would  be  for 
me  to  say,  if  I  wrere  capable  of  the  light  ambition  of  proposing  to  omit 
all  which  others  have  said  on  this  theme  before,  little  to  add  if  I  sought 
to  say  anything  wholly  new. 

I  have  thought,  perhaps  the  place  where  I  was  to  speak  suggested 
the  topic,  that  before  we  approach  the  ultimate  and  historical  greatness 
of  Mr.  Webster,  in  its  two  chief  departments,  and  attempt  to  appre 
ciate  by  what  qualities  of  genius  and  character,  and  what  succession 
of  action  he  attained  it,  there  might  be  an  interest  in  going  back  of  all 
this,  so  to  say,  and  pausing  a  few  moments  upon  his  youth.  I  include 
in  that  designation  the  period  from  his  birth,  on  the  eighteenth  day  of 
January,  1782,  until  1805,  when,  23  years  of  age,  he  declined  the  clerk 
ship  of  his  father's  court,  and  dedicated  himself  irrevocably  to  the  pro 
fession  of  the  law,  and  the  chances  of  a  summons  to  less  or  more  of 
public  life.  These  twenty-three  years  we  shall  call  the  youth  of  Web 
ster.  Its  incidents  are  few  and  well-known,  and  need  not  long  de 
tain  us. 

Until  May,  1796,  beyond  the  close  of  his  fifteenth  year,  he  lived  at 
home,  attending  the  schools  of  Masters  Chase  and  Tappan  success 
fully;  at  work  sometimes,  and  sometimes  at  play,  like  any  boy;  but 
finding  already,  as  few  beside  him  did,  the  stimulations  and  the  food 
of  intellectual  life  in  the  social  library;  drinking  in,  unawares,  from 
the  moral  and  physical  aspects  about  him,  the  lesson  and  the  power 
of  contention  and  self-trust;  and  learning  how  much  grander  than  the 
forest  bending  to  the  low  storm,  or  the  silver  and  cherishing  Merrimac, 
swollen  to  inundation,  and  turning,  as  love  becomes  madness,  to  ravage 
the  subject  intervale;  or  old  woods  sullenly  retiring  before  axe  and  fire 
— learning  to  feel  how  much  grander  than  these  was  the  coming  in  of 
civilization  as  there  he  saw  it,  courage,  labor,  patience,  plain  living, 
heroical  acting,  high  thinking,  beautiful  feeling,  the  fear  of  God,  love  of 
country  and  neighborhood  and  family,  and  all  that  form  of  human  life 
of  which  his  father  and  mother  and  sisters  and  brother  were  the  endeared 
exemplification.  In  the  arms  of  that  circle,  on  parent  knees,  or  later,  in 
intervals  of  work  or  play,  the  future  American  statesman  acquired  the 
idea  of  country, and  became  conscious  of  a  national  tie  and  a  national  life. 
There  and  then,  something,  glimpses,  a  little  of  the  romance,  the  sweet 
and  bitter  memories  of  a  soldier  and  borderer  of  the  old  colonial  time  and 
war  opened  to  the  large,  dark  eyes  of  the  child;  memoirs  of  French 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  399 

and  Indians  stealing  up  to  the  very  place  where  the  story  was  telling  ; 
of  men  shot  down  at  the  plough,  within  sight  of  the  old  log  house;  of 
the  massacre  at  Fort  William  Henry;  of  Stark,  of  Howe,  of  Wolfe, 
falling  in  the  arms  of  victory;  and  then  of  the  next  age,  its  grander 
scenes  and  higher  names;  of  the  father's  part  at  Bennington  and 
White  Plains;  of  Lafayette  and  Washington;  and  then  of  the  Con 
stitution,  just  adopted,  and  the  first  President,  just  inaugurated,  wilh 
services  of  public  thanksgiving  to  Almighty  God,  and  the  Union,  just 
sprung  into  life,  all  radiant  as  morning,  harbinger  and  promise  of 
a  brighter  day.  We  have  heard  how  in  that  season  he  bought 
and  first  read  the  Constitution  on  the  cotton  handkerchief.  The 
small  cannon,  I  think  his  biographers  say,  was  the  ominous  plaything 
of  Napoleon's  childhood.  But  this  incident  reminds  us  rather  of  the 
youthful  Luther,  astonished  and  kindling  over  the  first  Latin  Bible 
he  ever  saw — or  the  still  younger  Pascal,  permitted  to  look  into  the 
Euclid,  to  whose  sublimities  an  irresistible  nature  had  secretly  at 
tracted  him.  Long  before  his  fourteenth  year,  the  mother  first,  and 
then  the  father,  and  the  teachers,  and  the  schools,  and  the  little 
neighborhood,  had  discovered  an  extraordinary  hope  in  the  boy — a 
purpose,  a  dream,  not  yet  confessed,  of  giving  him  an  education  be 
gan  to  be  cherished,  and  in  May,  1796,  at  the  age  of  a  little  more  than 
fourteen  he  was  sent  to  Exeter.  I  have  myself  heard  a  gentleman, 
long  a  leader  of  the  Essex  bar  and  eminent  in  the  public  life,  now  no 
more,  who  was  then  a  pupil  at  the  school,  describe  his  large  frame, 
superb  face,  immature  manners  and  rustic  dress,  surmounted  with  a 
student's  gown  when  he  first  came;  and  say,  too,  how  soon  and  uni 
versally  his  capacity  was  owned.  Who  does  not  wish  that  the  glorious 
Buckminster  could  have  foreseen  and  witnessed  the  whole  greatness,  but 
certainly  the  renown  of  eloquence,  which  was  to  come  to  the  young 
stranger,  who,  choking,  speechless,  the  great  fountain  of  feelings  sealed 
as  yet,  he  tried  in  vain  to  encourage  to  declaim  before  the  unconscious, 
bright  tribes  of  the  school  ?  The  influences  of  Exeter  on  him  were  ex 
cellent,  but  his  stay  was  brief.  In  the  winter  of  1796  he  was  at 
home  again,  and  in  February,  1797,  he  was  placed  under  the  private 
tuition,  and  in  the  family  of  Rev.  Mr.  Wood,  of  Boscowen.  It  was 
on  the  way  with  his  father  to  the  house  of  Mr.  Wood  that  he  first 
heard  with  astonishment,  that  the  parental  love  and  good  sense  had 
resolved  on  the  sacrifice  of  giving  him  an  education  at  college.  "  I 
remember,"  he  writes,  "  the  very  hill  we  were  ascending,  through  deep 
snows,  in  a  New  England  sleigh,  when  my  father  made  his  purpose 
known  to  me.  I  could  not  speak.  How  could  he,  I  thought,  with  so 
large  a  family  and  in  such  narrow  circumstances,  think  of  incurring  so 
great  an  expense  for  me  ?  A  warm  glow  ran  all  over  me,  and  I  laid 
my  head  on  my  father's  shoulder  and  wept."  That  speechlessness, 
that  glow,  those  tears  reveal  to  us  what  his  memory  and  consciousness 
could  hardly  do  to  him,  that  already,  somewhere,  at  some  hour  of  day 


400  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

or  evening  or  night,  as  he  read  some  page,  or  heard  some  narrative, 
or  saw  some  happier  schoolfellow  set  off  from  Exeter  to  begin  his 
college  life,  the  love  of  intellectual  enjoyment,  the  ambition  of  intel 
lectual  supremacy  had  taken  hold  of  him;  that  when  or  how  he  knew 
not,  but  before  he  was  aware  of  it,  the  hope  of  obtaining  a  liberal 
education  and  leading  a  professional  life  had  come  to  be  his  last  thought 
before  he  slept,  his  first  when  he  awoke,  and  to  shape  his  dreams. 
Behold  in  them,  too,  his  whole  future.  That  day,  that  hour,  that 
very  moment,  from  the  deep  snows  of  that  slow  hill  he  set  out  on  the 
long  ascent  that  bore  him — "no  step  backward" — to  the  high  places 
of  the  world  !  He  remained  under  the  tuition  of  Mr.  Wood  until 
August,  1796,  and  then  entered  this  college,  where  he  was,  at  the  end 
of  the  full  term  of  four  years,  graduated  in  1801.  Of  that  college  life 
you  can  tell  me  more  than  I  can  tell  you.  It  is  the  universal  evidence 
that  it  was  distinguished  by  exemplary  demeanor,  by  reverence  for 
religion;  respect  for  instructors,  and  observance  of  law.  We  hear  from 
all  sources,  too,  that  it  was  distinguished  by  assiduous  and  various 
studies.  With  the  exception  of  one  or  two  branches  for  which  his 
imperfect  preparation  had  failed  to  excite  a  taste,  he  is  reported  to 
have  addressed  himself  to  the  prescribed  tasks,  and  to  have  availed 
himself  of  the  whole  body  of  means  of  liberal  culture  appointed  by 
the  government,  with  decorum  and  conscientiouness  and  zeal  We 
hear  more  than  this.  The  whole  course  of  traditions  concerning  his 
college  life  Is  full  to  prove  two  facts.  The  first  is,  that  his  reading, 
general  and  various  far  beyoud  the  requirements  of  the  faculty,  or  the 
average  capacity  of  that  stage  of  the  literary  life,  was  not  solid  and 
useful  merely,  which  is  vague  commendation,  but  it  was  such  as  pre 
dicted  and  educated  the  future  statesman.  In  English  litetature,  its 
finer  parts,  its  poetry  and  tasteful  reading,  I  mean,  he  had  read  much 
rather  than  many  things,  but  he  had  read  somewhat.  That  a  young 
man  of  his  emotional  nature,  full  of  eloquent  feeling,  the  germs  of  a 
fine  taste,  the  ear  for  the  music  of  words,  the  eye  for  all  beauty  and 
all  sublimity,  already  in  extraordinary  measure  his,  already  practising 
the  art  of  composition,  speech,  and  criticism,  should  have  recreated 
himself,  as  we  know  he  did,  with  Shakespeare,  and  Pope,  and  Addison; 
with  the  great  romance  of  Defoe;  with  the  more  recent  biographies  of 
Johnson,  and  his  grand  imitations  of  Juvenal;  with  the  sweet  and  re 
fined  simplicity  and  abstracted  observation  of  Goldsmith,  mingled 
with  sketches  of  homefelt  delight;  with  the  elegy  of  Gray,  whose 
solemn  touches  soothed  the  thoughts  or  test  the  consciousness  of  the 
last  hour;  with  the  vigorous  originality  of  then  recent  Cowper,  whom  he 
quoted  when  he  came  home,  as  it  proved,  to  die — this  we  should  have 
expected.  But  I  have  heard,  and  believe,  that  it  was  to  another  insti 
tution,  more  austere  and  characteristic,  that  his  own  mind  was  irresti- 
bly  and  instinctively,  even  then  attracted.  The  conduct  of  what  Locke 
calls  the  human  understanding;  the  limits  of  human  knowledge;  the 


RUFUS   CIlO ATE.  4°* 

means  of  coming  to  the  knowledge  of  the  different  classes  of  truth;  the 
laws  of  thought;  the  science  of  proofs,  which  is  logic;  the  science  of 
morals;  the  facts  of  history;  the  spirit  of  laws;  the  conduct  and  aims  of 
reasoning  in  politics — these  were  the  strong  meat  that  announced 
and  began  to  train  the  great  political  thinker  and  reasoner  of  a  later 
day. 

I  have  heard  that  he  mjght  oftener  be  found  in  some  solitary  seat  or 
walk,  with  a  volume  of  "  Gordon's,"  or  Ramsay's  "  Revolution,"  or  of 
the  "Federalist,"  or  of  "  Hume's  History  of  England,"  or  of  his 
essays,  or  of  Grotius,  or  Puffendorf,  or  Cicero,  or  Montesquieu,  or 
Locke,  or  Burke,  than  with  ''  Virgil,"  or  "  Shakespeare,"  or  the  "  Spec 
tator."  Of  the  history  of  opinions,  in  the  department  of  philosophy, 
he  was  already  a  curious  student.  The  oration  he  delivered  before 
the  United  Fraternity,  when  he  was  graduated,  treated  that  topic  of 
opinion,  under  some  aspects,  as  I  recollect  from  once  reading  the 
manuscript,  with  copiousness,  judgment  and  enthusiasm;  and  some  of 
his  ridicule  of  the  Berkleian  theory  of  the  non-existence  of  matter,  I 
well  remember,  anticipated  the  sarcasm  of  a  later  day  on  a  currency 
all  metallic,  and  on  nullification  as  a  strictly  constitutional  remedy. 

The  other  fact  as  wel1  established  by  all  we  can  gather  of  his  life  in 
college  is,  that  the  faculty,  so  transcendent  afterwards,  of  moving  the 
minds  of  men  by  speech,  was  already  developed  and  effective  in  a  re 
markable  degree.  Always  there  is  a  best  writer  and  speaker  or  two 
in  college,  but  this  stereotyped  designation  seems  wholly  inadequate 
to  convey  the  impression  he  made  in  his  time.  Many,  now  alive, 
have  said  that  some  of  his  performances,  having  regard  to  his  youth, 
his  objects,  his  topics,  his  audience — one  on  the  celebration  of  inde 
pendence,  one  a  ei^ogy  on  a  student  much  beloved — produced  an 
instant  effect,  and  left  a  recollection,  to  which  nothing  else  could  be 
compared;  which  could  be  felt  and  admitted  only,  not  explained,  but 
which  now  they  know  were  the  first  sweet  tones  of  the  inexplicable  but 
delightful  influence  of  that  voice,  unconfirmed  as  yet,  and  unassured, 
whose  more  consummate  expression  charmed  and  suspended  the  soul 
of  a  nation.  To  read  these  essays  now  disappoints  you  somewhat.  As 
Ouintillian  says  of  Hortensius,  Apparet  placuisse  aliqnid  co  dicentc 
qnod  legentes  non  invenimus.  Some  spell  there  was  in  the  spoken 
word  which  the  reader  misses.  To  find  the  secret  of  that  spell,  you 
must  recall  the  youth  of  Webster.  Beloved  fondly,  and  appreciated 
by  that  circle,  as  much  as  by  any  audience,  larger,  more  exacting,  more 
various  and  more  fit,  which  afterwards  he  found  anywhere;  known  to 
be  manly,  just,  pure,  generous,  affectionate;  known  and  felt  by  his 
strong  will,  his  high  aims,  his  commanding  character,  his  uncommon 
and  difficult  studies;  he  had  every  heart's  warmest  good  wish  with  him 
when  he  rose;  and  then,  when,  unchecked  by  any  very  severe  theory 
of  Uiste,  unoppressed  by  any  dread  of  saying  something  incompatible 
with  his  place  and  fame,  or  unequal  to  himself,  he  just  unlocked  the 


402  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

deep  spring  of  that  eloquent  feeling,  which,  in  connection  with  his 
power  of  mere  intellect,  was  such  a  stupendous  psychological  mystery, 
and  gave  heart  and  soul,  not  to  the  conduct  of  an  argument,  or  the 
investigation  and  display  of  a  truth  of  the  reason,  but  to  a  fervid, 
beautiful,  and  prolonged  emotion,  to  grief,  to  eulogy,  to  the  patriotism 
of  scholars — why  need  we  doubt  or  wonder,  as  they  looked  on  that 
presiding  brow,  the  eye  large,  sad,  unworldly,  incapable  to  be  fathomed, 
the  lip  and  chin,  whose  firmness  as  of  chiseled,  perfect  marble,  pro- 
foundest  sensibility  alone  caused  ever  to  tremble,  why  wonder  at  the 
traditions  of  the  charm  which  they  owned;  and  the  fame  which  they 
even  then  predicted? 

His  college  life  closed  in  1801.  For  the  statement  that  he  had 
thought  of  selecting  the  profession  of  theology,  the  surviving  mem 
bers  of  his  family,  his  son  and  his  brother-in-law,  assure  me  that  there 
is  no  foundation.  Certainly  he  began  at  once  the  study  of  the  law, 
and  interrupted  only  by  the  necessity  of  teaching  an  academy  a  few 
months,  with  which  he  united  the  recreation  of  recording  deeds,  he 
prosecuted  it  at  Salisbury  in  the  office  of  Mr.  Thompson,  and  at  Bos 
ton  in  the  office  of  Mr.  Gore,  until  March,  1805,  when,  resisting  the 
sharp  temptation  of  a  clerkship,  and  an  annual  salary  of  fifteen  hun 
dred  dollars,  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar. 

And  so  he  has  put  on  the  robe  of  manhood,  and  has  come  to  do  the 
work  of  life.  Of  his  youth  there  is  no  need  to  say  more.  It  had 
been  pure,  happy,  strenuous;  in  many  things  privileged.  The  influ 
ence  of  home,  of  his  father,  and  the  excellent  mother,  and  that  noble 
brother,  whom  he  loved  so  dearly,  and  mourned  with  such  sorrow — 
these  influences  on  his  heart,  principles,  will,  aims,  were  elevated 
and  strong  at  an  early  age,  comparatively,  the  then  great  distinction 
of  liberal  education  was  his.  His  collegee  life  was  brilliant  and  with 
out  a  stain;  and  in  moving  his  admission  to  the  bar,  Mr.  Gore  pre 
sented  him  as  one  of  extraordinary  promise. 

With  prospects  bright,  upon  the  world  he  came — 
Pure  love  of  virtue,  strong  desire  of  fame  ; 
Men  watched  the  way  his  lofty  mind  would  take. 
And  all  foretold  the  progress  he  would  make. 

And  yet,  if  on  some  day,  as  that  season  was  drawing  to  its  close, 
it  had  been  foretold  to  him,  that  before  his  life — prolonged  to  little 
more  than  three  score  years  and  ten — should  end,  he  should  see  that 
country.,  in  which  he  was  coming  to  act  his  part,  expanded  across  a 
continent;  the  thirteen  states  of  1801  multiplied  to  thirty-one;  the 
territory  of  the  Northwest  and  the  great  valley  below  sown  full  of 
those  stars  of  empire;  the  Mississippi  forded,  and  the  Sabine,  and  Rio 
Grande,  and  the  Nueces;  the  ponderous  gates  of  the  Rocky  Mount 
ains  opened  to  shut  no  more;  the  great  tranquil  sea  become  our  sea; 
her  area  seven  times  larger,  her  people  five  times  more  in  number; 
that  through  all  experiences  of  trial,  the  madness  of  party,  the  in- 


XUFUS  CIIO ATE.  403 

justice  of  foreign  powers,  the  vast  enlargement  of  her  borders,  the 
antagonisms  of  interior  interest  and  feeling — the  spirit  of  nationality 
would  grow  stronger  still  and  more  plastic;  that  the  tide  of  American 
feeling  would  run  ever  fuller;  that  her  agriculture  would  grow  more 
scientific;  her  arts  more  various  and  instructed,  and  better  rewarded; 
her  commerce  winged  to  a  wider  and  still  wider  flight;  that  the  part 
she  would  play  in  human  affairs  would  grow  nobler  ever,  and  more 
recognized;  that  in  this  vast  growth  of  national  greatness  time  would 
be  found  for  the  higher  necessities  of  the  soul;  that  her  popular  and 
her  higher  education  would  go  on  advancing;  that  her  charities  and 
all  her  enterprises  of  philanthropy  would  go  on  enlarging;  that  her 
age  of  lettered  glory  should  find  its  auspicious  dawn — and  then  it  had 
been  also  foretold  him  that  even  so,  with  her  growth  and  strength, 
should  his  fame  grow  and  be  established  and  cherished,  there  where 
she  should  garner  up  her  heart;  that  by  long  gradations  of  service  and 
labor  he  should  rise  to  be,  before  he  should  taste  of  death,  of  the 
peerless  among  her  great  ones;  that  he  should  win  the  double  honor, 
and  wear  the  double  wreath  of  professional  and  public  supremacy; 
that  he  should  become  her  wisest  to  counsel  and  her  most  eloquent  to 
persuade;  that  he  should  come  to  be  called  the  Defender  of  the  Con 
stitution  and  the  preserver  of  honorable  peace;  that  the  "austere 
glory  of  suffering"  to  save  the  Union  should  be  his;  that  his  death, 
at  the  summit  of  greatness,  on  the  verge  of  a  ripe  and  venerable  age, 
should  be  distinguished,  less  by  the  flags  at  half-mast  on  ocean  and 
lake,  less  by  the  minute-guns,  less  by  the  public  procession,  and  the 
appointed  eulogy,  than  by  sudden  paleness  over-spreading  all  faces, 
by  gushing  tears,  by  sorrow,  thoughtful,  boding,  silent,  the  sense  of 
desolateness,  as  if  renown  and  grace  were  dead — as  if  the  hunter's 
path,  and  the  sailor's  in  the  great  solitude  of  wilderness  or  sea,  hence- 
foreward  were  more  lonely  and  less  safe  than  before — had  this  pre 
diction  been  whispered,  how  calmly  had  that  perfect  sobriety  of  mind 
put  it  all  aside  as  a  pernicious  or  idle  dream  !  Yet  in  the  fulfilment 
of  that  prediction  is  told  the  remaining  story  of  his  life. 

It  does  not  come  within  the  plan  which  I  have  marked  out  for  this 
discourse  to  repeat  the  incidents  of  that  subsequent  history.  The 
more  conspicuous  are  known  to  you  and  the  whole  American  world. 
Minuter  details  the  time  does  not  permit,  nor  the  occasion  require. 
Some  quite  general  views  of  what  he  became  and  achieved;  some  at 
tempt  to  appreciate  that  intellectual  power,  and  force  of  will,  and 
elaborate  culture,  and  that  power  of  eloquence,  so  splendid  and  re 
markable,  by  which  he  wrought  his  work;  some  tributes  to  the  en 
dearing  and  noble  parts  of  his  character;  and  some  attempt  to  vindi 
cate  the  political  morality  by  which  his  public  life  was  guided,  even  to 
its  last  great  act,  are  all  that  I  propose,  and  much  more  than  I  can  hope 
worthily  to  accomplish. 

In  coming,  then,  to  consider  what  he  became  and  achieved,  I  have 


404  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

always  thought  it  was  not  easy  to  lay  too  much  stress,  in  the  first 
place,  on  that  realization  of  what  might  have  been  regarded  incom 
patible  forms  of  superiority,  and  that  exemplification  of  what  might 
have  been  regarded  incompatible  gifts  or  acquirements — "  rare  in  their 
separate  excellence,  wonderful  in  their  special  combination" — which 
meet  us  in  him  everywhere.  Remark  first  that  evidence — rare,  if  not 
unprecedented — of  the  first  rate,  in  the  two  substantially  distinct  and 
unkindred  professions — that  of  the  law  and  that  of  public  life.  In 
surveying  that  ultimate  and  finished  greatness  in  which  he  stands  be 
fore  you  in  his  full  stature  and  at  his  best,  this  double  and  blended 
eminence  is  the  first  thing  that  fixes  the  eye,  and  the  last.  When  he 
died,  he  was  first  of  American  lawyers,  and  first  of  American  states 
men.  In  both  characters  he  continued — discharging  the  foremost 
part  in  each — down  to  the  falling  of  the  awful  curtain.  Both  charac 
ters  he  kept  distinct — the  habits  of  mind,  the  forms  of  reasoning,  the 
nature  of  the  proofs,  the  style  of  eloquence.  Neither  hurt  nor  changed 
the  other.  How  much  his  understanding  was  "quickened  and  invig 
orated  "  by  the  law,  I  have  often  heard  him  acknowledge  and  explain. 
But  how,  in  spite  of  the  law,  was  that  mind,  by  other  felicity  and 
other  culture,  "  opened  and  liberalized"  also?  How  few  of  what  are 
called  the  intellectual  bad  habits  of  the  bar  he  carried  into  the  duties  of 
statesmanship  !  His  interpretations  of  the  Constitution  and  of  treat 
ies  ;  his  expositions  of  public  law — how  little  do  you  find  in  them, 
where,  if  anywhere,  you  would  expect  it,  of  the  mere  ingenuity,  the 
moving  of  "  vermiculate  questions,"  the  word-catching,  the  scholastic 
subtlety,  which,  in  the  phrase  of  his  memorable  quotation — 

"Can  sever  and  divide 
A  hair,  twixt  north  and  north-west  side." 

Ascribed  by  satire  to  the  profession;  and  how  much  of  its  truer  func 
tion,  and  nobler  power  of  calling  history,  language,  the  moral  senti 
ments,  reason,  common  sense,  the  high  spirit  of  magnanimous 
nationality  to  the  search  of  truth!  How  little  do  we  find  in  his 
politics  of  another  bad  habit  of  the  profession,  the  worst  "  idol  of  the 
cave!"  a  morbid,  unreasoning,  and  regretful  passion  for  the  past,  that 
bends  and  weeps  over  the  stream,  running  irreversibly,  because  it 
will  not  return,  and  will  not  pause,  and  gives  back  to  vanity  every 
hour  a  changed  and  less  beautiful  face!  We  ascribe  to  him  certainly 
a  sober  and  conservative  habit  of  mind,  and  such  he  had.  Such  a 
habit  the  study  and  practice  of  the  law  doubtless  does  not  impair. 
But  his  was  my  Lord  Bacon's  conservatism.  He  held  with  him, 
"  that  antiquity  deserves  this  reverence,  that  men  should  make  a 
stand  thereupon,  and  discover  what  is  the  bsst  way  ;  but  when  the 
discovery  is  well  taken,  then  to  make  progression."  He  would  keep 
the  Union  according  to  the  Constitution,  not  as  a  relic,  a  memorial, 
a  tradition — not  for  what  it  has  done,  though  that  kindled  his  grati- 


RUFUS   CHOATE.  405 

tude  and  excited  his  admiration — but  for  what  it  is  now  and  hereafter 
to  do,  when  adapted  by  a  wise  practical  philosophy  to  a  wider  and 
higher  area,  to  larger  numbers,  to  severer  and  more  glorious  proba 
tion.  Who  better  than  he  has  grasped  and  displayed  the  advancing 
tendencies  and  enlarging  duties  of  America  ?  Who  has  caught — whose 
eloquence,  whose  genius,  whose  counsels,  have  caught  more 
adequately  the  genuine  inspiration  of  our  destiny  ?  Who  has  better 
expounded  by  what  moral  and  prudential  policy,  by  what  improved 
culture  of  heart  and  reason,  by  what  true  worship  of  God,  by  what 
good  faith  to  all  other  nations,  the  dangers  of  that  destiny  may  be 
disarmed,  and  its  large  promise  laid  hold  on  ? 

And  while  the  lawyer  did  not  hurt  the  statesman,  the  statesman 
did  not  hurt  the  lawyer.  More  ;  the  statesman  did  not  modify,  did 
not  unrobe,  did  not  tinge,  the  lawyer.  It  would  not  be  to  him  that 
the  epigram  could  have  application,  where  the  old  Latin  satirist 
makes  the  client  complain  that  his  lawsuit  is  concerning  ires  capclhc 
— three  kids  ;  and  that  his  advocate,  with  large  disdain  of  them,  is 
haranguing  with  loud  voice  and  both  hands,  about  the  slaughters  of 
Cannse,  the  war  of  Mithridates,  the  perjuries  of  Hannibal.  I  could 
never  detect  that  in  his  discussions  of  law  he  did  not  just  as  much 
recognize  authority,  just  as  anxiously  seek  for  adjudications  old  and 
new  in  his  favor,  just  as  closely  sift  them  and  collate  them,  that  he 
might  bring  them  to  his  side  if  he  could,  or  leave  them  ambiguous  and 
harmless  if  he  could  not  ;  that  he  did  not  just  as  rigorously  observe 
the  peculiar  mode  which  that  science  employs  in  passing  from  the 
known  to  the  unknown,  the  peculiar  logic  of  the  law,  as  if  he  had 
never  investigated  any  other  than  legal  truth  by  any  other  organ  on 
than  legal  logic  in  his  life.  Peculiarities  of  legal  reasoning  he  cer 
tainly  had,  belonging  to  the  peculiar  structure  and  vast  power  of 
his  mind  ;  more  original  thought,  more  discourse  of  principles,  less  of 
that  mere  subtlety  of  analysis,  which  is  not  restrained  by  good  sense, 
and  the  higher  power  of  duly  tempering  and  combining  one  truth  in  a 
practical  science  with  other  truths,  from  absurdity  or  mischief,  but 
still  it  was  all  strict  and  exact  legal  reasoning.  The  long  habit  of 
employing  the  more  popular  method,  the  probable  and  plausible  con 
jectures,  the  approximations,  the  compromises  of  deliberative  discus 
sion,  did  not  seem  to  have  left  the  least  trace  on  his  vocabulary,  or 
his  reasonings,  or  his  demeanor.  No  doubt,  as  a  part  of  his  whole 
culture  it  helped  it  to  give  enlargement  and  general  power  and  eleva 
tion  of  mind  ;  but  the  sweet  stream  passed  under  the  bitter  sea,  the 
bitter  sea  pressed  on  the  sweet  stream,  and  each  flowed  unmingled, 
unchanged  in  taste  or  color. 

I  have  said  that  this  double  eminence  is  rare,  if  not  unprecedented. 
We  do  no  justice  to  Mr.  Webster,  if  we  do  not  keep  this  ever  in  mind. 
How  many  exemplifications  of  it  do  you  find  in  British  public  life  ? 
The  Earl  of  Chatham,  Burke,  Fox,  Sheridan,  Windham,  Pitt,  Grattan, 


406  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

Canning,  Peel — were  they  also,  or  any  one,  the  acknowledged  leader 
in  Westminster  Hall  or  on  the  circuit?  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  you  say  that  the  mere  parliamentary  career  of  Mansfield,  or 
Thurlow,  or  Dunning,  or  Erskine,  or  Camden,  or  Curran,  would  com 
pare  in  duration,  constancy,  variety  of  effort,  the  range  of  topics 
discussed,  the  fulness,  extent,  and  affluence  of  the  discussions,  the  in 
fluence  exerted,  the  space  filled,  the  senatorial  character  completely 
realized — with  his  ?  In  our  own  public  life  it  is  easier  to  find  a  paral 
lel.  Great  names  crowd  on  us  in  each  department  ;  greater,  or  more 
loved,  or  more  venerable,  no  annals  can  show.  But  how  few,  even 
here,  have  gathered  the  double  wreath,  and  the  blended  fame. 

And  now,  having  observed  the  fact  of  this  combination  of  quality 
and  excellence  scarcely  compatible,  inspect  for  a  moment  each  by 
itself. 

The  professional  life  of  Mr.  Webster  began  in  the  spring  of  1805. 
It  may  not  be  said  to  have  ended  until  he  died;  but  I  do  not  know 
that  it  happened  to  him  to  appear  in  court,  for  the  trial  of  a  cause, 
after  his  argument  of  the  Goodyear  patent  for  improvements  in  the 
preparation  of  India-rubber,  in  Trenton,  in  March,  1852. 

There  I  saw,  and  last  heard  him.  The  thirty-four  years  which  had 
elapsed  since  a  member  of  this  college,  at  home  for  health,  I  first 
saw  and  heard  him  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts,  in  the 
county  of  Essex,  defending  Jackman,  accused  of  the  robbery  of  Good 
rich,  had  in  almost  all  things  changed  him.  The  raven  hair,  the  vig 
orous,  full  frame  and  firm  tread,  the  eminent  but  severe  beauty  of  the 
countenance  not  yet  sealed  with  middle  age  of  man,  the  exuberant 
demonstration  of  all  sorts  of  power,  which  so  marked  him  at  first — for 
these,  as  once  they  were,  I  explored  in  vain.  Yet  how  far  higher  was 
the  interest  that  attended  him  now:  his  sixty-nine  years  robed,  as  it 
were,  with  honor  and  with  love,  with  associations  of  great  service 
done  to  the  State,  and  of  great  fame  gathered  and  safe;  and  then  the 
perfect  mastery  of  the  cause  in  its  legal  and  scientific  principles,  and 
in  all  its  facts;  the  admirable  clearness  and  order  in  which  his  propo 
sitions  were  advanced  successively;  the  power,  the  occasional  high 
ethical  tone,  the  appropriate  eloquence,  by  which  they  were  made 
probable  and  persuasive  to  the  judicial  reason,  these  announced  the 
leader  of  the  American  bar,  with  every  faculty  and  every  accomplish 
ment  by  which  he  had  won  that  proud  title,  wholly  unimpaired;  the 
eye  not  dim,  nor  the  natural  force  abated. 

I  cannot  here  and  now  trace,  with  any  minuteness,  the  course  of 
Mr.  Webster  at  the  bar  during  these  forty-eight  years  from  the  open 
ing  of  his  office  in  Boscawen;  nor  convey  any  impression  whatever  of 
the  aggregate  of  labor  which  that  course  imposed;  or  of  the  intellect 
ual  power  which  it  exacted;  nor  indicate  the  stages  of  his  rise;  nor 
define  the  -ime  when  his  position  at  the  summit  of  the  profession  may 
be  said  tn  iiave  become  completely  vindicated.  You  know,  in  gen- 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  407 

i 

eral,  that  he  began  the  practice  of  the  law  in  New  Hampshire  in  the 
spring  of  1805;  that  he  prosecuted  it,  here,  in  its  severest  school,  with 
great  diligence,  and  brilliant  success,  among  competitors  of  larger  ex 
perience  and  of  consummate  ability,  until  1816;  that  he  then  removed 
to  Massachusetts,  and  that  there,  in  the  courts  of  that  State,  and  of 
other  States,  and  in  those  of  the  general  government,  and  especially  in 
the  Supreme  Court  sitting  at  Washington,  he  pursued  it  as  the  calling 
by  which  he  was  to  earn  his  daily  bread,  until  he  died.  You  know, 
indeed,  that  he  did  not  pursue  it  exactly  as  one  pursues  it  who  con 
fines  himself  to  an  office;  and  seeks  to  do  the  current  and  miscellane 
ous  business  of  a  single  bar.  His  professional  employment,  as  I  have 
often  heard  him  say,  was  very  much  the  preparation  of  opinions  on 
important  questions,  presented  from  every  part  of  the  country;  and  the 
trial  of  causes.  This  kind  of  professional  life  allowed  him  seasonable 
vacations;  and  it  accommodated  itself  somewhat  to  the  exactions  of 
his  other  and  public  life.  But  it  was  all  one  long  and  continued  prac 
tice  of  the  law;  the  professional  character  was  never  put  off,  nor  the 
professional  robe  long  unworn  to  the  last. 

You  know,  too,  his  character  as  a  jurist.  This  topic  has  been  re 
cently  and  separately  treated,  with  great  ability,  by  one  in  a  high  de 
gree  competent  to  the  task;  the  late  learned  Chief  Justice  of  New 
Hampshire,  now  professor  of  law  at  Cambridge;  and  it  needs  no  ad 
ditional  illustration  from  me.  Yet,  let  me  say,  that  herein,  also,  the 
first  thing  which  strikes  you  is  the  union  of  diverse,  and,  as  I  have 
said,  what  might  have  been  regarded  incompatible  excellencies.  I 
shall  submit  it  to  the  judgment  of  the  universal  American  bar,  if  a 
carefully  prepared  opinion  of  Mr.  Webster,  on  any  question  of  law 
whatever  in  the  whole  range  of  our  jurisprudence,  v/ould  not  be  ac 
cepted  everywhere  as  of  the  most  commanding  authority,  and  as  the 
highest  evidence  of  legal  truth  ?  I  submit  it  to  that  same  judgment, 
if  for  many  years  before  his  death,  they  would  not  have  rather  chosen 
to  intrust  the  maintenance  and  enforcement  of  any  important  proposi 
tion  of  law  whatever,  before  any  legal  tribunal  of  character  whatever, 
to  his  best  exertion  of  his  faculties,  than  to  any  other  ability  which  the 
whole  wealth  of  the  profession  could  supply  ? 

And  this  alone  completes  the  description  of  a  lawyer  and  a  forensic 
orator  of  the  first  rate  ;  but  it  does  not  complete  the  description  of  his 
professional  character.  By  the  side  of  all  this,  so  to  speak,  there  was 
that  whole  class  of  qualities  which  made  him  for  any  description  of  trial 
by  jury  whatever,  criminal  or  civil,  by  even  a  more  universal  assent, 
foremost.  For  that  form  of  trial  no  faculty  was  unused  or  needless  ; 
but  you  were  most  struck  there  to  see  the  unrivalled  legal  reason  put 
off,  as  it  were,  and  reappear  in  the  form  of  a  robust  common  sense  and 
eloquent  feeling,  applying  itself  to  an  exciting  subject  of  business  ;  to  see 
the  kuowledge  of  men  and  life  by  which  the  falsehood  and  veracity  of 
witnesses,  the  probabilities  and  improbabilities  of  transactions  as  sworn 
A.  I1.— It. 


4°8  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

•  *.» 

to,  were  discerned  in  a  moment ;  the  direct,  plain,  forcible  speech  ;  the 
consummate  narrative,  a  department  which  he  had  particularly  cultivated, 
and  in  which  no  man  ever  excelled  him  ;  the  easy  and  perfect  analysis 
by  which  he  conveyed  his  side  of  the  cause  to  the  mind  of  the  jury  ;  the 
occasional  gush  of  strong  feeling,  indignation,  or  pity;  the  masterly, 
yet  natural  way,  in  which  all  the  moral  emotions  of  which  his  cause  was 
susceptible,  were  called  to  use,  the  occasional  sovereignty  of  dictation 
to  which  his  convictions  seemed  spontaneously  to  rise.  His  efforts  in 
trials  by  jury  composed  a  more  traditional  and  evanescent  part  of  his 
professional  reputation  than  his  arguments  on  questions  of  law  :  but  I 
almost  think  they  were  his  mightiest  professional  displays,  or  displays 
of  any  kind,  after  all. 

One  such  I  stood  in  a  relation  to  witness  with  a  comparatively  easy 
curiosity,  and  yet  with  intimate  and  professional  knowledge  of  all  the 
embarrassments  of  the  case.  It  was  the  trial  of  John  Francis  Knapp, 
charged  with  being  present,  aiding,  and  abetting  in  the  murder  of 
Joseph  White,  in  which  Mr.  Webster  conducted  the  prosecution  for  the 
commonwealth,  in  the  same  year  with  his  reply  to  Mr.  Hayne,  in  the 
Senate  and  a  few  months  later ;  and  when  I  bring  to  mind  the  incidents 
of  that  trial  ;  the  necessity  of  proving  that  the  prisoner  was  near 
enough  to  the  chamber  in  which  the  murder  was  being  committed 
by  another  hand  to  aid  in  the  act ;  and  was  there  with  the  intention  to 
do  so,  and  thus  in  point  of  law  did  aid  in  it — because  mere  accessorial 
guilt  was  not  enough  to  convict  him  -r  the  difficulty  of  proving  this— 
because  the  nearest  point  to  which  the  evidence  could  trace  him  was 
still  so  distant  as  to  warrant  a  pretty  formidable  doubt  whether  mere 
curiosity  had  not  carried  him  thither  ;  and  whether  he  could  in  any 
useful,  or  even  conceivable  manner  have  co-operated  with  the  actual 
murderer,  if  he  had  intended  to  do  so ;  and  because  the  only  mode  of 
rendering  it  probable  that  he  was  there  with  a  purpose  of  guilt  was  by 
showing  that  he  was  one  of  the  parties  to  a  conspiracy  of  murder, 
whose  very  existence,  actors,  and  objects,  had  to  be  made  out  by  the 
collation  of  the  widest  possible  range  of  circumstances — some  of  them 
pretty  loose — and  even  if  he  was  a  conspirator  it  did  not  quite  neces 
sarily  follow  that  any  active  participation  was  assigned  to  him  for  his 
part,  any  more  than  to  his  brother,  who,  confessedly,  took  no  such  part 
— the  great  number  of  witnesses  to  be  examined  and  cross-examined,  a 
duty  devolving  wholly  on  him  ;  the  quick  and  sound  judgment  demanded 
and  supplied  to  determine  what  to  use  and  what  to  reject  of  a  mass  of 
rather  unmanageable  materials  ;  the  points  in  the  law  of  evidence  to  be 
argued — in  the  course  of  which  he  made  an  appeal  to  the  Bench  on  the 
complete  impunity  which  the  rejection  of  the  prisoner's  confession  would 
give  to  the  murder,  in  a  style  of  dignity  and  energy,  I  should  rather  say 
of  grandeur,  which  I  never  heard  him  equal  before  or  after  ;  the  high 
ability  and  fidelity  with  which  every  part  of  the  defense  was 
conducted  ;  and  the  final  summing  up,  to  which  he  brought,  and  in 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  409 

which  he  needed,  the  utmost  exertion  of  every  faculty  he  possessed  to 
persuade  the  jury  that  the  obligation  of  that  duty,  the  sense  of  which, 
he  said,  "pursued  us  ever:  it  is  omnipresent  like  the  Deity:  if  we 
take  the  wings  of  the  morning  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
sea,  duty  performed  or  duty  violated  is  still  with  us  for  our  happiness  or 
misery" — to  persuade  them  that  this  obligation  demanded  that  on  his 
proofs  they  should  convict  the  prisoner :  to  which  he  brought  first  the  pro 
found  belief  of  his  guilt,  without  which  he  could  not  have  prosecuted  him; 
then  skill,  consummate  in  inspiring  them  with  a  desire  or  a  willingness  to 
be  instrumental  in  detecting  that  guilt ;  and  to  lean  on  him  in  the  effort 
to  detect  it ;  then  every  resource  of  professional  ability  to  break  the  force 
of  the  propositions  of  the  defense,  and  to  establish  the  truth  of  his  own  ; 
inferring  a  conspiracy  to  which  the  prisoner  was  a  party,  from  circum 
stances  acutely  ridiculed  by  the  able  counsel  opposing  him  as  "Stuff," 
but  woven  by  him  into  strong  and  uniform  tissue,  and  then  bridging 
over  from  the  conspiracy  to  the  not  very  necessary  inference  that  the 
particular  conspirator  on  trial  was  at  his  post,  in  execution  of  it — to  aid 
and  abet — the  picture  of  the  murder  with  which  he  began — not  for 
rhetorical  display,  but  to  inspire  solemnity  and  horror,  and  a  desire  to 
detect  and  punish  for  justice  and  for  security  ;  the  sublime  exhortation 
to  duty  with  which  he  closed — resting  on  the  universality,  and  author!- 
tativeness,  and  eternity  of  its  obligation — which  left  in  every  juror's 
mind  the  impression  that  it  was  the  duty  of  convicting  in  this  particular 
case,  the  sense  of  which  would  be  with  him  in  the  hour  of  death,  and  in 
the  judgment,  and  forever — with  these  recollections  of  that  trial  I  cannot 
help  thinking  it  a  more  difficult  and  higher  effort  of  mind  than  that  more 
famous  "  oration  for  the  crown." 

It  would  be  not  unpleasing  nor  inappropriate  to  pause,  and  recall  the 
names  of  some  of  that  succession  ol  competitors  by  whose  rivalry  the 
several  stages  of  his  professional  life  were  honored  and  exercised  ;  and 
of  some  of  the  eminent  judicial  persons  who  presided  over  that  various 
and  high  contention.  Time  scarcely  permits  this ;  but  in  the  briefest 
notice  I  must  take  occasion  to  say  that  perhaps  the  most  im 
portant  influence  —certainly  the  most  important  early  influence — 
on  his  professional  traits  and  fortunes,  was  that  exerted  by  the  great 
general  abilities,  impressive  character,  and  legal  genius  of  Mr.  Mason. 
Who  he  was  you  all  know.  How  much  the  jurisprudence  of  New 
Hampshire  owes  to  him ;  what  deep  traces  he  left  on  it ;  how  much  he 
did  to  promote  the  culture,  and  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  the  old 
common  law,  to  adapt  it  to  your  wants,  and  your  institutions,  and  to 
construct  a  system  of  practice  by  which  it  was  administered  with  extra 
ordinary  energy  aud  effectiveness  for  the  discovery  of  truth,  and  the  en 
forcement  of  right ;  you  of  the  legal  profession  of  this  state  will  ever  be 
proud  to  acknowledge.  Another  forum  in  a  neighboring  commonwealth, 
witnessed  and  profited  by  the  last  labors,  and  enlarged  studies  of  the 
consummate  lawyer  and  practiser  ;  and  at  an  early  day  the  Senate,  the 


410  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

country,  had  recognized  his  vast  practical  wisdom  and  sagacity,  the  fruit 
of  the  highest  intellectual  endowments,  matured  thought,  and  profound 
observation  ;  his  fidelity  to  the  obligations  of  that  party  connection  to 
which  he  was  attached  ;  his  fidelity  through  all  his  life,  still  more 
conspicuous,  and  still  more  admirable,  to  the  higher  obligations  of  a 
considerate  and  enlarged  patriotism.  He  had  been  more  than  fourteen 
years  at  the  bar,  when  Mr.  Webster  came  to  it  ;  he  discerned  instantly 
what  manner  of  man  his  youthful  competitor  was  :  he  admitted  him  to 
his  intimate  friendship  ;  and  paid  him  the  unequivocal  compliment,  and 
did  him  the  real  kindness  of  compelling  him  to  the  utmost  exertion  of 
his  diligence  and  capacity  by  calling  out  against  him  all  his  own. 
44  The  proprieties  of  this  occasion,"  these  are  Mr.  Webster's  words  in 
presenting  the  resolution  of  the  Suffolk  bar  upon  Mr.  Mason's  death, 
compel  me,  with  whatever  reluctance,  to  refrain  from  the  indulgence  of 
the  personal  feelings  which  arise  in  my  heart  upon  the  death  of  one  with 
whom  I  have  cultivated  a  sincere,  affectionate,  and  unbroken  friendship 
from  the  day  when  I  commenced  my  own  professional  career  to  the 
closing  hour  of  his  life.  I  will  not  say  of  the  advantages  which  I  have 
derived  from  his  intercourse  and  conversation  all  that  Mr.  Fox  said  of 
Edmund  Burke,  but  I  am  bound  to  say,  that  of  my  own  professional  dis 
cipline  and  attainments,  whatever  they  may  be,  I  owe  much  to  that  close 
attention  to  the  discharge  of  my  duties  which  I  was  compelled  to  pay 
for  nine  successive  years,  from  day  to  day,  by  Mr.  Mason's  efforts  and 
arguments  at  the  same  bar.  I  must  have  been  unintelligent  indeed, not 
to"  have  learned  something  from  the  constant  displays  of  that  power 
which  I  had  so  much  occasion  to  see  and  feel. 

I  reckon  next  to  his,  for  the  earlier  time  of  his  life,  the  influence 
of  the  learned  and  accomplished  Smith;  and  next  to  these — some  may 
believe  greater — is  that  of  Mr.  Justice  Story.  That  extraordinary  per 
son  had'been  admitted  to  the  bar  in  Essex  in  Massachusetts  in  1801; 
and  he  was  engaged  in  many  trials  in  the  county  of  Rockingham  in 
this  state  before  Mr.  Webster  had  assumed  his  own  established  posi 
tion.  Their  political  opinions  differed;  but  such  was  his  affluence  of 
knowledge  already;  such  his  stimulant  enthusiasm;  he  was  burning 
with  so  incredible  a  passion  for  learning,  and  fame,  that  the  influence 
on  the  still  young  Webster  was  instant;  and  it  was  great  and  perma 
nent.  It  was  reciprocal  too;  and  an  intimacy  began  that  attended  the 
whole  course  of  honor  through  which  each,  in  his  several  sphere,  as 
cended.  Parsons  he  saw,  also,  but  rarely;  and  Dexter  oftener,  and 
with  more  nearness  of  observation,  while  yet  laying"  the  foundation  of 
his  own  mind  and  character;  and  he  shared  largely  in  the  universal 
admiration  of  that  time  and  of  this,  of  their  attainments,  and  genius, 
and  diverse  greatness. 

As  he  came  to  the  grander  practice  of  the  national  bar,  other  com 
petition  was  to  be  encountered.  Other  names  begin  to  solicit  us;  other 
contention;  higher  prizes.  It  would  be  quite  within  the  proprieties  of 


RUFUS   CIIO ATE.  411 

this  discourse  to  remember  the  parties,  at  least,  to  some  of  the  higher 
causes,  by  which  his  ultimate  professional  fame  was  built  up;  even  if 
I  could  not  hope  to  convey  any  impression  of  the  novelty  and  diffi 
culty  of  the  questions  which  they  involved,  or  of  the  positive  addition 
which  the  argument  and  judgment  made  to  the  treasures  of  our  con 
stitutional  and  general  jurisprudence.  But  there  is  only  one  of  which 
I  have  time  to  say  anything,  and  that  is  the  case  which  established  the 
inviolability  of  the  charter  of  Dartmouth  College  by  the  Legislature  of 
the  State  of  New  Hampshire.  Acts  of  the  Legislature,  passed  in  the 
year  1816,  had  invaded  its  charter.  A  suit  was  brought  to  test  their 
validity.  It  was  tried  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  state;  a  judgment 
was  given  against  the  college,  and  this  was  appealed  to  the  Supreme 
Federal  Court  by  writ  of  error.  Upon  solemn  argument  the  charter 
was  decided  to  be  a  contract  whose  obligation  a  state  may  not  impair; 
the  acts  were  decided  to  be  invalid  as  an  attempt  to  impair  it,  and  you 
hold  your  charter  under  that  decision  to-day.  How  much  Mr.  Web 
ster  contributed  to  that  result,  how  much  the  effort  advanced  his  own 
distinction  at  the  bar,  you  all  know.  Well,  as  if  of  yesterday,  I  re 
member  how  it  was  written  home  from  Washington,  that  4l  Mr.  \Veb- 
ster  closed  a  legal  argument  of  great  power  by  a  peroration  which 
charmed  and  melted  his  audience."  Often  since  I  have  heard  vague 
accounts,  not  much  more  satisfactory,  of  the  speech  and  the  scene. 
I  was  aware  that  the  report  of  his  argument,  as  it  was  published,  did 
not  contain  the  a'ctual  peroration,  and  I  supposed  it  lost  forever.  By 
the  great  kindness  of  a  learned  and  excellent  person,  Doctor  Chauncy 
A.  Goodrich,  a  professor  in  Yale  College,  with  whom  I  had  not  the 
honor  of  acquaintance,  although  his  virtues,  accomplishments,  and 
most  useful  life,  were  well  known  to  me,  I  can  read  to  you  the  words 
whose  power,  when  those  lips  spoke  them,  so  many  owned,  although 
they  could  not  repeat  them.  As  those  lips  spoke  them,  we  shall  hear 
them  nevermore,  but  no  utterance  can  extinguish  their  simple,  sweet 
and  perfect  beauty.  Let  me  first  bring  the  general  scene  before  you, 
and  then  you  will  hear  the  rest  in  Mr.  Goodrich's  description.  It 
was  in  1818,  in  the  thirty-seventh  year  of  Mr.  Webster's  age.  It  was 
addressed  to  a  tribunal  presided  over  by  Marshall,  assisted  by 
Washington,  Livingston,  Johnson,  Story,  Todd  and  Duvall — a  tribu 
nal  unsurpassed  on  earth  in  all  that  gives  illustration  to  a  bench  of 
law,  and  sustained  and  venerated  by  a  noble  bar.  He  had  called  to 
his  aid  the  ripe  and  beautiful  culture  of  Hopkinson;  and  of  his  oppo 
nents  was  William  Wirt,  then  and  ever  of  the  leaders  of  the  bar,  who 
with  faculties  and  accomplishments  fitting  him  to  adorn  and  guide  pub 
lic  life,  abounding  in  deep  professional  learning,  and  in  the  most 
various  and  elegant  acquisitions — a  ripe  and  splendid  orator,  made  so 
by  genius  and  the  most  assiduous  culture — consecrated  all  to  the  ser 
vice  of  the  law.  It  was  before  that  tribunal,  and  in  the  presence  of  an 
audience  select  and  critical,  among  whom,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind, 


412  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

were  some  graduates  of  the  college,  who  were  attending  to  assist 
against  her,  that  he  opened  the  cause.  I  gladly  proceed  to  give  the 
words  of  Mr.  Goodrich. 

"  Before  going  to  Washington,  which  I  did  chiefly  for  the  sake  of 
hearing  Mr.  Webster,  I  was  told  that,  in  arguing  the  case  at  Exeter, 
New  Hampshire,  he  had  left  the  whole  court-room  in  tears  at  the  con 
clusion  of  his  speech.  This,  I  confess,  struck  me  unpleasantly — any 
attempt  at  pathos  on  a  purely  legal  question  like  this,  seemed  hardly 
in  good  taste.  On  my  way  to  Washington  I  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Mr.  Webster.  We  were  together  for  several  days  in  Philadelphia,  at 
the  house  of  a  common  friend;  and  as  the  college  question  was  one 
of  deep  interest  to  literary  men,  we  conversed  often  and  largely  on 
the  subject.  As  he  dwelt  upon  the  leading  points  of  the  case,  in  terms 
so  calm,  simple  and  precise,  I  said  to  myself  more  than  once,  in  ref 
erence  to  the  story  I  had  heard,  whatever  may  have  seemed  appro 
priate  in  defending  the  college  at  home,  and  on  her  own  ground,  there 
will  be  no  appeal  to  the  feelings  of  Judge  Marshall  and  his  associates 
at  Washington.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  held  its  ses 
sion  that  winter  in  a  mean  apartment  of  moderate  size,  the  Capitol 
not  having  been  built  after  its  destruction  in  1814.  The  audience, 
when  the  case  came  on,  was  therefore  small,  consisting  chiefly  of  legal 
men,  the  Mite  of  the  profession  throughout  the  country.  Mr.  Webster 
entered  upon  his  argument  in  the  calm  tone  of  easy  and  dignified  con 
versation.  His  matter  was  so  completely  at  his  command  that  he 
scarcely  looked  at  his  brief,  but  went  on  for  more  than  four  hours  witn 
a  statement  so  luminous,  and  a  chain  of  reasoning  so  easy  to  be  un 
derstood,  and  yet  approaching  so  nearly  to  absolute  demonstration, 
that  he  seemed  to  carry  with  him  every  man  of  his  audience  without 
the  slightest  effort  or  weariness  on  either  side.  It  was  hardly  elo 
quence,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term;  it  was  pure  reason.  Now  and 
then,  for  a  sentence  or  two,  his  eye  flashed  and  his  voice  swelled  into 
a  bolder  note,  as  he  uttered  some  emphatic  thought;  but  he  instantly 
fell  back  into  the  tone  of  earnest  conversation  which  ran  throughout 
the  great  body  of  his  speech.  A  single  circumstance  will  show  you  the 
clearness  and  absorbing  power  of  his  argument. 

"  I  observed  that  Judge  Story,  at  the  opening  of  the  case  had  pre 
pared  himself,  pen  in  hand,  as  if  to  take  copious  minutes.  Hour  after 
hour  I  saw  him  fixed  in  the  same  attitude,  but,  so  far  as  I  could  per 
ceive,  with  not  a  note  on  his  paper.  The  argument  closed,  and  I 
could  not  discover  that  he  had  taken  a  single  note.  Others  around 
me  remarked  the  same  thing,  and  it  was  among  the  on  dits  of  Wrash- 
ington  that  a  friend  spoke  to  him  of  the  fact  with  surprise,  when  the 
judge  remarked,  '  every  thing  was  so  clear,  and  so  easy  to  remember, 
that  not  a  note  seemed  necessary,  and,  in  fact,  I  thought  little  or 
nothing  about  my  notes.' 

"The  argument  ended.      Mr.   Webster  stood  for  some  moments 


RUFUS  ClfOATE.  413 

silent  before  the  court,  while  every  eye  was  fixed  intently  upon  him. 
At  length,  addressing  the  Chief  Justice,  Marshall,  he  proceeded  thus: 
'This,  sir,  is  my  case  !  It  is  the  case  not  merely  of  that  humble  in 
stitution;  it  is  the  case  of  every  college  in  our  land.  It  is  more.  It 
is  the  case  of  every  eleemosynary  institution  throughout  our  country 
— of  all  those  great  charities  founded  by  the  piety  of  our  ancestors  to 
alleviate  human  misery  and  scatter  blessings  along  the  pathway  of  life. 
It  is  more  !  It  is,  in  some  sense,  the  case  of  every  man  among  us, 
who  has  property  of  which  he  may  be  stripped,  for  the  question  is 
simply  this:  Shall  our  State  Legislatures  be  allowed  to  take  that  which 
is  not  their  own,  to  turn  it  from  its  original  use,  and  apply  it  to  such 
end  and  purposes  as  they,  in  their  discretion  shall  see  fit ! 

"  '  Sir,  you  may  destroy  this  little  institution;  it  is  weak;  it  is  in  your 
hands  !  I  know  it  is  one  of  the  lesser  lights  in  the  literary  horizon  of 
our  country.  You  may  put  it  out.  But  if  you  do  so,  you  must  carry 
through  your  work  !  You  must  extinguish,  one  after  another,  all  those 
great  lights  of  science  which,  for  more  than  a  century,  have  thrown 
their  radience  over  our  land. 

^  '  It  is,  sir,  as  I  have  said,  a  small  college.  And  yet,  there  are  those 
who  love  it ' — here  the  feelings  which  he  had  thus  far  succeeded  in  keep 
ing  down,  broke  forth.  His  lips  quivered;  his  firm  cheek  trembled 
with  emotion  ;  his  eyes  were  filled  with  tears,  his  voice  choked,  and  he 
seemed  struggling  to  the  utmost  simply  to  gain  that  mastery  over  him 
self  which  might  save  him  from  an  unmanly  burst  of  feeling.  I  will 
not  attempt  to  give  you  the  few  broken  words  of  tenderness  in  which 
he  went  on  to  speak  of  his  attachment  to  the  college.  The  whole 
seemed  to  be  mingled  throughout  with  recollections  of  father,  mother, 
brother,  and  all  the  trials  and  privations  through  which  he  had  made 
his  way  into  life.  Every  one  saw  that  it  was  wholly  unpremeditated, 
and  a  pressure  on  his  heart,  which  sought  relief  in  words  and  tears. 

"  The  court-room  during  these  two  or  three  minutes  presented  an 
extraordinary  spectacle.  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  with  his  tall  and 
gaunt  figure  bent  over  as  if  to  catch  the  slightest  whisper,  the  deep  fur 
rows  on  his  cheek  expanded  with  emotion,  and  eyes  suffused  with  tears; 
Mr.  Justice  Washington  at  his  side,  with  his  small  and  emaciated  frame 
and  countenance  more  like  marble  than  I  ever  saw  on  any  other 
human  being — leaning  forward  with  an  eager,  troubled  look  ;  and  the 
remainder  of  the  court,  at  the  two  extremities,  pressing  as  it  were, 
toward  a  single  point,  while  the  audience  below  were  wrapping  them 
selves  round  in  closer  folds  beneath  the  bench  to  catch  each  look,  and 
every  movement  of  the  speaker's  face.  If  a  painter  could  give  us  the 
scene  on  canvas — those  forms  and  countenances,  and  Daniel  Webster 
as  he  then  stood  in  the  midst;  it  would  be  one  of  the  most  touching 
pictures  in  the  history  of  eloquence.  One  thing  it  taught  me,  that  the 
pathetic  depends  not  merely  on  the  words  uttered,  but  still  more  on 
the  estimate  we  put  upon  him  who  utters  them.  There  was  not  one 


AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

i  *-  -• .. 

among  the  strong  minded  men  of  that  assembly  who  could  think  it 
unmanly  to  weep,  when  he  saw  standing  before  him  the  man  who  had 
made  such  an  argument,  melted  into  the  tenderness  of  a  child. 

"  Mr.  Webster  bad  now  recovered  his  composure,  and  fixing  his  keen 
eye  on  the  Chief  Justice,  said,  in  that  deep  tone  with  which  he  some 
times  thrilled  the  heart  of  an  audience  : — 

' '  '  Sir,  I  know  not  how  others  may  feel  (glancing  at  the  opponents  of 
the  college  before  him),  but  for  myself,  when  I  see  my  alma  mater 
surrounded  like  Caesar  in  the  Senate  House,  by  those  who  are  reiter 
ating  stab  upon  stab,  I  would  not  for  this  right  hand,  have  her  turn 
to  me,  and  say,  et  tu  quoque,  mi  fill !  and  thou,  too,  my  son  ! — He  sat 
down.'  There  was  a  deathlike  stillness  throughout  the  room  for  some 
moments;  every  one  seemed  to  be  slowly  recovering  himself,  and 
coming  gradually  back  to  his  ordinary  range  of  thought  and  feeling." 

It  was  while  Mr.  Webster  was  ascending  through  the  long  gradations 
of  the  legal  profession  to  its  highest  rank,  that  by  a  parallel  series  of  dis 
play  on  a  stage,  and  in  parts  totally  distinct,  by  other  studies,  thoughts, 
and  actions,  he  rose  also  to  be  at  his  death  the  first  of  American  states 
men.  The  last  of  the  mighty  rivals  was  dead  before  him,  and  he  stood 
alone.  Give  this  aspect  also  of  his  greatness  a  passing  glance.  His 
public  life  began  in  May,  1813,  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in 
Congress,  to  which  this  state  had  elected  him.  It  ended  when  he  died. 
If  you  except  the  interval  between  his  removal  from  New  Hampshire 
and  his  election  in  Massachusetts,  it  was  a  public  life  of  forty  years. 
By  what  political  morality  and  by  what  enlarged  patriotism,  embracing 
the  whole  country,  that  life  was  guided,  I  shall  consider  hereafter.  Let 
me  now  fix  your  attention  rather  on  the  magnitude  and  variety  and 
actual  value  of  the  service.  Consider  that  from  he  day  he  went  upon 
the  Committee  of  Foreign  Relations,  in  1813,  in  the  time  of  war,  and 
more  and  more,  the  longer  he  lived  and  the  higher  he  rose,  he  was  a 
man  whose  great  talents  and  devotion  to  public  duty  placed  and  kept 
him  in  a  position  of  associated  or  sole  command  ;  command  in  the 
political  connection  to  which  he  belonged,  command  in  opposition, 
command  in  power,  and  appreciate  the  responsibilities  which  that 
implies,  what  care,  what  prudence,  what  mastery  of  the  whole  ground 
— exacting  for  the  conduct  of  a  party,  as  Gibbon  says  of  Fox,  abilities 
and  civil  discretion  equal  to  the  conduct  of  an  empire.  Consider  the 
work  he  did  in  that  life  of  forty  years — the  range  of  subjects  investi 
gated  and  discussed  ;  composing  the  whole  theory  and  practice  of  our 
organic  and  administrative  politics,  foreign  and  domestic;  the  vast 
body  of  instructive  thought  he  produced  and  put  in  possession  of  the 
country;  how  much  he  achieved  in  Congress  as  well  as  at  the  bar,  to 
fix  the  true  interpretation,  as  well  as  to  impress  the  transcendent  value 
of  the  constitution  itself,  as  much  altogether  as  any  jurist  or  statesman 
since  its  adoption.  How  much  to  establish  in  the  general  mind,  the 
great  doctrine  that  the  government  of  the  United  States  is  a  govern- 


JtUFUS  CHOATR.  415 

ment  proper,  established  by  the  people  of  the  states,  not  a  compact 
between  sovereign  communities, — that  within  its  limits  it  is  supreme, 
and  that  whether  it  is  within  its  limits  or  not,  in  any  given  exertion  of 
itself,  is  to  be  determined  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States— 
the  ultimate  arbiter  in  the  last  resort — from  which  there  is  no  appeal 
but  to  revolution;  how  much  he  did  in  the  course  of  the  discussions 
which  grew  out  of  the  proposed  mission  to  Panama,  and,  at  a  later 
day,  out  of  the  removal  of  the  deposits,  to  place  the  executive  depart 
ment  of  the  government  on  its  true  basis,  and  under  its  true  limita 
tions,  to  secure  to  that  department  all  its  just  powers  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  vindicate  to  the  legislative  depart 
ment,  and  especially  to  the  Senate,  all  that  belongs  to  them  to  arrest 
the  tendencies  which  he  thought  at  one  time  threatened  to  substi 
tute  the  government  of  a  single  will,  of  a  single  person  of  great 
force  of  character  and  boundless  popularity,  and  of  a  numerical 
majority  of  the  people,  told  by  the  head,  without  intermediate  institu 
tions  of  any  kind,  judicial  or  senatorial,  in  place  of  the  elaborate 
system  of  checks  and  balances,  by  which  the  Constitution  aimed  at  a 
government  of  laws  and  not  of  men;  how  much  attracting  less  popular 
attention,  but  scarcely  less  important,  to  complete  the  great  work 
which  experience  had  shown  to  be  left  unfinished  by  the  judiciary  act 
of  1789,  by  providing  for  the  punishment  of  all  crimes  against  the 
United  States.  How  much  for  securing  a  safe  currency  and  a  true 
financial  system,  not  only  by  the  promulgation  of  sound  opinions,  but 
by  good  specific  measures  adopted,  or  bad  ones  defeated.  How  much 
to  develop  the  vast  material  resources  of  the  country,  and  to  push 
forward  the  planting  of  the  West — not  troubled  by  any  fear  of  exhaust 
ing  old  States — by  a  liberal  policy  of  public  lands,  by  vindicating  the 
constitutional  power  of  Congress  to  make  or  aid  in  making  large  classes 
of  internal  improvements,  and  by  acting  on  that  doctrine  uniformly 
from  1813,  whenever  a  road  was  to  be  built,  or  a  rapid  suppressed,  or 
a  canal  to  be  opened,  or  a  breakwater  or  a  lighthouse  set  up  above  or 
below  the  flow  of  the  tide,  if  so  far  beyond  the  ability  of  a  single 
state,  or  of  so  wide  utility  to  commerce  and  labor  as  to  rise  to  the  rank 
of  a  work  general  in  its  influences — another  tie  of  union,  because 
another  proof  of  the  beneficence  of  union.  How  much  to  protect  the 
vast  mechanical  and  manufacturing  interests  of  the  country,  a  value 
of  many  hundreds  of  millions — after  having  lured  into  existence 
against  his  counsels,  against  his  science  of  political  economy,  by  a 
policy  of  artificial  encouragement — from  being  sacrificed,  and  the  pur 
suits  and  plans  of  large  regions  and  communities  broken  up,  and  the 
acquired  skill  of  the  country  squandered  by  a  sudden  and  capricious 
withdrawal  of  the  promise  of  the  Government.  How  much  for  the  right 
performance  of  the  most  delicate  and  difficult  of  all  tasks,  the  ordering 
of  the  foreign  affairs  of  a  nation,  free,  sensitive,  self-conscious,  recog 
nizing,  it  is  true,  public  law  and  a  morality  of  the  State,  binding  on  the 


AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

conscience  of  the  State,  yet  aspiring  to  power,  eminence,  and  com 
mand,  its  whole  frame  filled  full  and  all  on  fire  with  American  feeling, 
sympathetic  with  liberty  everywhere.  How  much  for  the  right  ordering 
of  the  foreign  affairs  of  such  a  State — aiming  in  all  his  policy,  from  his 
speech  on  the  Greek  question  in  1823,  to  his  letters  to  M.  Hulsemann 
in  1850,  to  occupy  the  high,  plain,  yet  dizzy  ground  which  separates 
influence  from  intervention,  to  avow  and  promulgate  warm  good  will 
to  humanity,  wherever  striving  to  be  free,  to  inquire  authentically  into 
the  history  of  its  struggles,  to  take  official  and  avowed  pains  to  ascer 
tain  the  moment  when  its  success  may  be  recognized;  consistently,  ever, 
with  the  great  code  that  keeps  the  peace  of  the  world,  abstaining  from 
everything  which  shall  give  any  nation  a  right  under  the  law  of  nations 
to  utter  one  word  of  complaint,  still  less  to  retaliate  by  war,  the  sym 
pathy,  but  also  the  neutrality,  of  Washington.  How  much  to  compose 
with  honor  concurrence  of  difficulties  with  the  first  power  in  the  world, 
which  anything  less  than  the  highest  degree  of  discretion,  firmness, 
ability,  and  means  of  commanding  respect  and  confidence  at  home  and 
abroad  would  inevitably  have  conducted  to  the  last  calamity — a  disputed 
boundary  line  of  many  hundred  miles  from  the  St.  Croix  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  which  divided  an  exasperated  and  impracticable  border 
population,  enlisted  the  pride  and  affected  the  interests  and  controlled 
the  politics  of  particular  States,  as  well  as  pressed  on  the  peace  and 
honor  of  the  nation,  which  the  most  popular  administrations  of  the 
era  of  the  quietest  and  best  public  feelings,  the  times  of  Munroe  and  of 
Jackson,  could  not  adjust,  which  had  grown  so  complicated  with  other 
topics  of  excitement  that  one  false  step  right  or  left,  would  have  been 
a  step  down  a  precipice — this  line  settled  forever;  the  claim  of  England 
to  search  our  ships  for  the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade  silenced  for 
ever,  and  a  new  engagement  entered  into  by  treaty,  binding  the 
national  faith  to  contribute  the  specific  naval  force  for  putting  an  end 
to  the  great  crime  of  man — the  long  practice  of  England  to  enter  an 
American  ship  and  impress  from  its  crew,  terminated  forever,  the  deck 
henceforth  guarded  sacredly  and  completely  by  the  flag.  How  much  by 
profound  discernment,  by  eloquent  speech,  by  devoted  life  to  strengthen 
the  ties  of  union,  and  breathe  the  fine  and  strong  spirit  of  nationality 
through  all  our  numbers.  How  much,  most  of  all,  last  of  all,  after  the, 
war  with  Mexico — needless  if  his  counsels  had  governed — had  ended  in 
so  vast  an  acquisition  of  territory,  in  presenting  to  the  two  great  anta 
gonistic  sections  of  our  country  so  vast  an  area  to  enter  on,  so  imperial 
a  prize  to  contend  for,  and  the  accursed  fraternal  strife  had  begun; 
how  much  then,  when,  rising  to  the  measure  of  a  true,  and  difficult  and 
rare  greatness,  remembering  that  he  had  a  country  to  save  as  well  as 
a  local  constituency  to  gratify,  laying  all  the  wealth,  all  the  hopes,  of 
an  illustrious  life  on  the  altar  of  a  hazardous  patriotism,  he  sought  and 
won  the  more  exceeding  glory  which  now  attends — which  in  the  next 
age  shall  mere  conspicuously  attend — his  name  who  composes  an 


RCFUS  CIIO ATE.  417 

Agitated  and  saves  a  sinking  land — recall  this  series  of  conduct  and 
influences,  study  them  carefully  in  their  facts  and  results — the  reading 
of  years,  and  you  attain  to  a  true  appreciation  of  this  aspect  of  his 
greatness — his  public  character  and  life. 

For  such  a  review  the  eulogy  of  an  hour  has  no  room.  Such  a  task 
demands  research,  details,  proofs,  illustrations;  a  long  labor — a  volume 
of  history  composed  according  to  her  severest  laws — setting  down 
nothing,  depreciating  nothing  in  malignity  to  the  dead;  suppressing 
nothing  and  falsifying  nothing  in  adulation  of  the  dead,  professing 
fidelity  incorrupt — unswerved  by  hatred  or  by  love,  yet  able  to  measure, 
able  to  glow,  in  the  contemplation  of  a  true  greatness  and  a  vast  and 
varied  and  useful  public  life;  such  a  history  as  the  genius  and  judg 
ment  and  delicate  private  and  public  morality  of  Everett — assisted  by 
his  perfect  knowledge  of  the  facts — not  disqualified  by  his  long  friend 
ship  unchilled  to  the  last  hour — such  a  history  as  he  might  construct. 

Two  or  three  suggestions,  occurring  on  the  most  general  observa 
tion  of  this  aspect  of  his  eminence,  you  will  tolerate  as  I  leave  the 
topic. 

Remark  how  very  large  a  proportion  of  all  this  class  of  his  acts  are 
wholly  beyond,  and  outside,  of  the  profession  of  the  law;  demanding 
studies,  experience,  a  turn  of  mind,  a  cast  of  qualities  and  character, 
such  as  that  profession  neither  gives,  nor  exacts.  Some  single 
speeches  in  Congress  of  consummate  ability,  have  been  made  by  great 
lawyers,  drawing  for  the  purpose  only  on  the  learning,  accomplish 
ments,  logic,  and  eloquence  of  the  forum.  Such  was  Chief  Jus 
tice,  then  Mr.,  Marshall's  argument  in  the  case  of  Jonathan  Robbins — 
turning  on  the  interpretation  of  a  treaty,  and  the  constitutional  power 
of  the  executive;  demonstration,  if  there  is  any  in  Euclid — anticipat 
ing  the  masterly  judgments  in  the  cause  of  Dartmouth  College,  or  of 
Gibbons  and  Ogden,  or  of  Maculloch  and  the  State  of  Maryland;  but 
such  an  one  as  a  lawyer  like  him — if  another  there  was — could  have 
made  in  his  professional  capacity  at  the  bar  of  the  House,  although  he 
had  never  reflected  on  practical  politics  an  hour  in  his  life.  Such 
somewhat  was  William  Pinckney's  speech  in  the  House  of  Represen 
tatives  on  the  treaty-making  power,  in  1815,  and  his  two  more  splen 
did  displays,  in  the  Senate,  on  the  Missouri  question,  in  1820,  the  last 
of  which  I  heard  Mr.  Clay  pronounce  the  greatest  he  ever  heard.  They 
were  pieces  of  legal  reasoning,  on  questions  of  constitutional  law; 
decorated  of  course  by  a  rhetoric  which  Hortensius  might  have  envied, 
and  Cicero  would  not  have  despised;  but  they  were  professional  at 
last.  To  some  extent  this  is  true  of  some  of  Mr.  Webster's  ablest 
speeches  in  Congress;  or,  more  accurately,  of  some  of  the  more  im 
portant  portions  of  some  of  his  ablest.  I  should  say  so  of  a  part  of 
that  on  the  Panama  Mission;  of  the  reply  to  Mr.  Hayne  even;  and  of 
almost  the  whole  of  that  reply  to  Mr.  Calhoun  on  the  thesis,  "  the 
Constitution  not  a  compact  between  sovereign  states;"  the  whole  se- 


4 1 S  A  MERIC.  1 W  FA  TRIO  7V SAL 

ries  of  discussion  of  the  constitutional  power  of  the  Executive,  and  the 
constitutional  power  of  the  Senate,  growing  out  of  the  removal  of  the 
deposits  and  the  supposed  tendencies  of  our  system  towards  a  central 
ization  of  government  in  a  president  and  a  majority  of  the  people, — 
marked,  all  of  them,  by  amazing  ability.  To  these  the  lawyer  who 
could  demonstrate  that  the  charter  of  this  college  is  a  contract  within 
the  Constitution,  or  that  the  steamboat  monopoly  usurped  upon  the 
executive  power  of  Congress  to  regulate  commerce,  was  already  equal 
— but  to  have  been  the  leader,  or  of  the  leaders  of  his  political  connec 
tion  for  thirty  years;  to  have  been  able  to  instruct  and  guide  on  every 
question  of  policy  as  well  as  law,  which  interested  the  nation  in  all 
that  time;  every  question  of  finance;  of  currency;  of  the  lands;  of  the 
development  and  care  of  our  resources  and  labor;  to  have  been  of 
strength  to  help  lead  his  country  by  the  hand,  up  to  a  position  of  in 
fluence  and  attraction  on  the  highest  place  on  earth,  yet  to  keep  her  peace 
and  to  keep  her  honor;  to  have  been  able  to  emulate  the  prescriptive 
and  awful  renown  of  the  founders  of  states  by  doing  something  which 
will  be  admitted,  when  some  generations  have  passed,  even  more  than 
now,  to  have  contributed  to  preserve  the  state — for  all  this  another 
man  was  needed — and  he  stands  forth  another  and  the  same. 

I  am  hereafter  to  speak  separately  of  the  political  morality  which 
guided  him  ever,  but  I  would  say  a  word  now  on  two  portions  of  his 
public  life,  one  of  which  has  been  the  subject  of  accusatory,  the  other 
of  disparaging  criticism,  unsound,  unkind,  in  both  instances. 

The  first  comprises  his  course  in  regard  to  a  protective  policy.  He 
opposed  a  tariff  of  protection  it  is  said,  in  1816,  and  1820,  and  1824  ; 
and  he  opposed,  in  1828,  a  sudden  and  fatal  repeal  of  such  a  tariff ; 
and  thereupon  I  have  seen  it  written  that  "this  proved  him  a  man 
with  no  great  comprehensive  ideas  of  political  economy  ;  who  took 
the  fleeting  interests,  and  transient  opinions  of  the  hour  for  his  norms 
of  conduct ;"  "  who  had  no  sober  and  serious  convictions  of  his  own." 
I  have  seen  it  more  decorously  written,  "  that  his  opinions  on  this  sub 
ject  were  not  determined  by  general  principles,  but  by  a  consideration 
of  immediate  sectional  interests." 

I  will  not  answer  this  by  what  Scaliger  says  of  Lipsius,  the  arrogant 
pedant  who  dogmatized  on  the  deeper  politics  as  he  did  on  the  text  of 
Tacticus  and  Seneca.  Neque  est  poillicus;  nee potest  quicquam  in  poli- 
tia;  nihil  poss^tnt  pedantes  in  ipsis  rebus;  nee  ego,  nee  alitis  doctus  pos- 
sumtis  scribere  inpoliticis.  I  say  only  that  the' case  totally  fails  to  give 
color  to  the  charge.  The  reasonings  of  Mr.  Webster  in  1816,  1820,  and 
1824,  expressed,  that  on  mature  reflection  and  due  and  appropriate 
study  he  had  embraced  the  opinion  that  it  was  needless  and  unwise 
to  force  American  manufactures,  by  regulation,  prematurely  to  life. 
Bred  in  a  commercial  community;  taught  from  his  earliest  hours  of 
thought  to  regard  the  care  of  commerce,  as  in  point  of  fact  the  leading 
object  and  cause  of  the  Union;  to  observe  around  him  no  other  forms 


It  UP  US   C1IO  ATE.  419 

of  material  industry  than  those  of  commerce,  navigation,  fisheries, 
agriculture,  and  a  few  plain  and  robust  mechanical  arts,  he  would 
come  to  the  study  of  the  political  economy  of  the  subject  with  a  cer 
tain  preoccupation  of  mind  perhaps  ;  so  coming  he  did  study  it  at  its 
well  heads,  and  he  adopted  his  conclusions  sincerely,  and  announced 
them  strongly. 

His  opinions  were  overruled  by  Congress  ;  and  a  national  policy 
was  adopted,  holding  out  all  conceivable  promise  of  permanence,  un 
der  which  vast  and  sensitive  investments  of  capital  were  made  ;  the 
expectations,  the  employments,  the  habits,  of  whole  ranges  of  states 
were  recast ;  an  industry,  new  to  us,  springing,  immature,  had  been 
advanced  just  so  far,  that  if  deserted  at  that  moment,  these  must  fol 
low  a  squandering  of  skill,  a  squandering  of  property,  an  aggregate 
of  destruction,  senseless,  needless,  and  unconscientious — such  as  marks 
the  worst  form  of  revolution.  On  these  facts,  at  a  later  day,  he 
thought  that  that  industry,  the  child  of  Government,  should  not  thus 
capriciously  be  deserted.  "The  duty  of  the  government,"  he  said, 
"at  the  present  moment  would  seem  to  be  to  preserve,  not  to  destroy; 
to  maintain  the  position  which  it  has  assumed;  for  one  I  shall  feel  it  an 
indispensable  obligation  to  hold  it  steady,  as  far  as  in  my  power,  to  that 
degree  of  protection  which  it  has  undertaken  to  bestow." 

And  does  this  prove  that  these  original  opinions  were  hasty,  shal 
low,  insincere,  unstudied?  Consistently  with  every  one  of  them; 
consistently  with  the  true  spirit,  and  all  the  aims-of  the  science  of  po 
litical  economy  itself  ;  consistent  with  every  duty  of  sober,  high,  earn 
est,  and  moral  statesmanship,  might  not  he  who  resisted  the  making 
of  a  tariff  in  1816,  deprecate  its  abandonment  in  1828?  Does  not 
Adam  Smith  himself  admit  that  it  is  "matter  fit  for  deliberation  how 
far  or  in  what  manner,  it  may  be  proper  to  restore  that  free  importa 
tion  after  it  has  been  for  some  little  time  interrupted  ?''  implying  that 
a  general  principle  of  national  wealth  may  be  displaced  or  modified  by 
special  circumstances — but  would  these  censors  therefore  cry  out  that 
he  had  no  "great  and  comprehensive  ideas  of  political  economy,"  and 
was  willing  to  be  "determined  not  by  general  principles,  but  by  im 
mediate  interests  ?"  Because  a  father  advises  his  son  against  an  early 
and  injudicious  marriage,  does  it  logically  follow,  or  is  it  ethically 
right,  that  after  his  advice  has  been  disregarded,  he  is  to  recommend 
desertion  of  the  young  wife,  and  the  young  child?  I  do  not  appreciate 
the  beauty  and  comprehensiveness  of  those  scientific  ideas  which  for 
get  that  the  actual  and  vast  "  interests"  of  the  community  are  exactly 
what  the  legislator  has  to  protect ;  that  the  concrete  of  things  must 
limit  the  foolish  wantonness  of  a  priori  theory;  that  that  department  of 
politics  which  has  for  its  object  the  promotion  and  distribution  of  the 
wealth  of  nations,  may  very  consistently,  and  very  scientifically,  pre 
serve  what  it  would  not  have  created.  He  who  accuses  Mr.  Webster 
in  this  behalf  of  "  having  no  sober  and  serious  convictions  of  his  own," 


420  A  ME  RICA  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

must  afford  some  other  proof  than  his  opposition  to  the  introduction 
of  a  policy  ;  and  then  his  willingness  to  protect  it  after  it  had  been  in 
troduced,  and  five  hundred  millions  of  property,  or,  however,  a  count 
less  sum  had  been  invested  under  it,  or  become  dependent  on  its  con 
tinuance, 

I  should  not  think  that  I  consulted  his  true  fame  if  I  did  not  add 
that  as  he  came  to  observe  the  practical  workings  of  the  protective 
policy  more  closely  than  at  first  he  had  done;  as  he  came  to  observe 
the  working  and  influences  of  a  various  manufacturing  and  mechanical 
labor;  to  see  how  it  employs  and  develops  every  faculty;  finds  occu 
pation  for  every  hour;  creates  or  diffuses  and  disciplines  ingenuity, 
gathering  up  every  fragment  of  mind  and  time  so  that  nothing  be  lost; 
how  a  steady  and  ample  home  market  assists  agriculture;  how  all  the 
great  employments  of  man  are  connected  by  a  kindred  tie,  so  that  the 
tilling  of  the  land,  navigation,  foreign,  coastwise  and  interior  com 
merce,  all  grow  with  the  growth,  and  strengthen  with  the  strength  of 
the  industry  of  the  arts — he  came  to  appreciate,  more  adequately  than 
at  first,  how  this  form  of  labor  contributes  to  wealth,  power,  enjoy 
ment,  a  great  civilization;  he  came  more  justly  to  grasp  the  conception 
of  how  consummate  a  destruction  it  would  cause — how  senseless,  how 
unphilosophical,  how  immoral — to  arrest  it  suddenly  and  capriciously 
after  it  had  been  lured  into  life;  how  wiser,  how  far  truer  to  the  prin 
ciples  of  the  science  which  seeks  to  augment  the  wealth  of  the  state, 
to  refuse  to  destroy  so  immense  an  accumulation  of  that  wealth.  In 
this  sense,  and  in  this  way,  I  believe  his  opinions  were  matured  and 
modified;  but  it  does  not  quite  follow  that  they  were  not,  in  every 
period,  conscientiously  formed  and  held,  or  that  they  were  not  in  the 
actual  circumstances  of  each  period  philosophically  just,  and  practically 
wise. 

The  other  act  of  his  public  life  to  which  I  alluded  is  his  negotiation 
of  the  Treaty  of  Washington,  in  1842,  with  Great  Britain.  This  act, 
the  country,  the  world,  has  judged  and  has  applauded.  Of  his  ad 
ministrative  ability;  his  discretion;  temper;  civil  courage;  his  power 
of  exacting  respect  and  confidence  from  those  with  whom  he  commu 
nicated,  and  of  influencing  their  reason;  his  knowledge  of  the  true  in 
terests  and  true  grandeur  of  the  two  great  parties  to  the  negotiation; 
of  the  states  of  the  Union  more  immediately  concerned,  and  of  the 
world,  whose  chief  concern  is  peace;  and  of  the  intrepidity  with  which 
he  encountered  the  disappointed  feelings,  and  disparaging  criticisms 
of  the  hour,  in  the  consciousness  that  he  had  done  a  good  and  large 
deed,  and  earned  a  permanent  and  honest  renown— rof  these  it  is  the 
truest  and  most  fortunate  single  exemplification  which  remains  of  him. 
Concerning  its  difficulty,  importance,  and  merits  of  all  sorts,  there 
were  at  the  time  few  dissenting  opinions  among  those  most  conversant 
with  the  subject,  although  there  were  some;  to-day  there  are  fewer 
still.  They  arc  so  few — a  single  sneer  by  the  side  of  his  grave,  ex- 


RUFUS  CJIOATE.  421 

pressing  that  "  A  man  who  makes  such  bargain  is  not  entitled  to  any 
great  glory  among  diplomatists,"  is  all  that  I  can  call  to  mind — that  I 
will  not  arrest  the  course  of  your  feelings  here  and  now  by  attempting 
to  refute  that  "sneer,"  out  of  the  history  of  the  hour  and  scene. 
"Standing  here,"  he  said  in  April,  1846,  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  to  which  he  had  returned — "  standing  here  to-day,  in  this  Sen 
ate,  and  speaking  in  behalf  of  the  administration  of  which  I  formed  a 
part,  and  in  behalf  of  the  two  houses  of  Congress  who  sustained  lhat 
administration,  cordially  and  effectively,  in  every  thing  relating  to  this 
treaty,  I  am  willing  to  appeal  to  the  public  men  of  the  age,  whether  in 
1842,  and  in  the  City  of  Washington,  something  was  not  done  for  the 
suppression  of  crime;  for  the  true  exposition  of  the  principles  of  pub 
lic  law;  for  the  freedom  and  security  of  commerce  on  the  ocean,  and 
for  the  peace  of  the  world  !"  In  that  forum  the  appeal  has  been  heard, 
and  the  praise  of  a  diplomatic  achievement  of  true  and  permanent 
glory,  has  been  irreversibly  awarded  to  him.  Beyond  that  forum  of 
the  mere  "  public  men  of  the  age,"  by  the  larger  jurisdiction,  the  gen 
eral  public,  the  same  praise  has  been  awarded.  Sunt  hie  etiam  sua 
prfpmia  laudi.  That  which  I  had  the  honor  to  say  in  the  Senate,  in  the 
session  of  1843,  in  a  discussion  concerning  this  treaty,  is  true  and  ap 
plicable,  now  as  then.  "  Why  should  I,  or  why  should  any  one  as 
sume  the  defense  of  a  treaty  here  in  this  body,  which  but  just  now,  on 
the  amplest  consideration,  in  the  confidence  and  calmness  of  executive 
session  was  approved  by  a  vote  so  decisive  ?  Sir,  the  country  by  a 
vote  far  more  decisive,  in  a  proportion  very  far  beyond  thirty-nine  to 
nine,  has  approved  your  approval.  Some  there  are,  some  few — I 
speak  not  now  of  any  member  of  this  Senate — restless,  selfish,  reck 
less,  'the  cankers  of  a  calm  world  and  a  long  peace,'  pining  with 
thirst  of  notoriety,  slaves  to  their  hatred  of  England,  to  whom  the 
treaty  is  distasteful;  to  whom  any  treaty,  and  all  things  but  the  glare 
and  clamor,  the  vain  pomp  and  hollow  circumstance  of  war — all  but 
these  would  be  distasteful  and  dreary.  But  the  country  is  with  you  in 
this  act  of  wisdom  and  glory;  its  intelligence,  its  morality,  its  labor, 
its  good  men,  the  thoughtful,  the  philantropic,  the  discreet,  the 
masses  are  with  you."  "  It  confirms  the  purpose  of  the  wise  and 
good  of  both  nations  to  be  forever  at  peace  with  one  another,  and  to 
put  away  forever  all  war  from  the  kindred  races;  war,  the  most  ridicu 
lous  of  all  blunders;  the  most  tremendous  of  crimes;  most  comprehen 
sive  of  evils." 

And  now  to  him  who  in  the  solitude  of  his  library  depreciates  this 
act,  first,  because  there  was  no  danger  of  a  war  with  England,  I  answer 
that  according  to  the  overwhelming  weight  of  that  kind  of  evidence  by 
which  that  kind  of  question  must  be  tried,  that  is  by  the  judgment  of 
the  great  body  of  well-informed  public  men  at  that  moment  in  Con 
gress,  in  the  government,  in  diplomatic  situation — our  relation  to  that 
power  had  become  so  delicate,  and  so  urgent,  that  unless  soon  ad- 


422  A  M ERICA  N  PA  TRIO  T1SM. 

justed  by  negotiation  there  was  real  danger  of  war.  Against  such 
evidence  what  is  the  value  of  the  speculation  of  a  private  person,  ten 
years  afterwards,  in  the  shade  of  his  general  studies,  whatever  his 
sagacity?  The  temper  of  the  border  population,  the  tendencies 
to  disorder  in  Canada,  stimulated  by  sympathisers  on  our  side 
of  the  line;  the  entrance  on  our  territory  of  a  British  armed  force 
in  1837,  cutting  the  Caroline  out  of  her  harbor,  and  sending  her 
down  the  falls;  the  arrest  of  McLeod  in  1841,  a  British  subject, 
composing  part  of  that  force,  by  the  government  of  New  York,  and 
the  threat  to  hang  him  which  a  person  high  in  office  in  England, 
declared  in  a  letter  which  was  shown  to  me,  would  raise  a  cry  for  war 
from  "Whig,  Radical;  and  Tory"  which  no  ministry  could  resist; 
growing  irritation  caused  by  the  search  of  our  vessels  under  color  of 
suppressing  the  slave  trade;  the  long  controversies,  almost  as  old  as 
the  government,  about  the  boundary  line — so  conducted  as  to  have  at 
last  convinced  each  disputant  that  the  other  was  fraudulent  and  insin 
cere;  as  to  have  enlisted  the  pride  of  states;  as  to  have  exasperated  and 
agitated  a  large  line  of  border;  as  to  have  entered  finally  into  the 
tactics  of  political  parties,  and  the  schemes  of  ambitious  men,  out 
bidding,  out-racing  one  another  in  a  competition  of  clamor  and  vehem 
ence;  a  controversy  on  which  England,  a  European  monarchy,  a  first- 
class  power  near  to  the  great  sources  of  the  opinions  of  the  world,  by 
her  press,  her  diplomacy,  her  universal  intercourse  had  taken  great  pains 
to  persuade  Europe  that  our  claim  was  groundless  andunconscientious — 
ail  these  things  announced  to  near  observers  in  public  life,  a  crisis  at  hand 
which  demanded  something  more  than  "any  sensible  and  honest  man" 
to  encounter;  assuring  some  glory  to  him  who  should  triumph  over  it. 
One  such  observer  said:  "Men  stood  facing  each  other  with  guns  on 
their  shoulders,  upon  opposite  sides  of  fordable  rivers  thirty  yards 
Avide.  The  discharge  of  a  single  musket  would  have  brought  on  a 
war  whose  fires  would  have  encircled  the  globe." 

In  this  act  disparaged  next  because  what  each  party  had  for  forty-six 
years  claimed  as  the  true  line  of  the  old  treaty  was  waived,  a  line  of 
agreement  substituted,  and  equivalents  given  and  taken,  for  <;ain  or 
loss?  But  herein  you  will  see  only,  what  the  nation  has  seen,  the 
boldness  as  well  as  sagacity  of  Mr.  Webster.  When  the  award  of  the 
King  of  the  Netherlands,  proposing  a. line  of  agreement  was  offered 
to  President  Jackson,  that  strong  will  dared  not  accept  it  in  the  face 
of  the  party  politics  of  Maine — although  he  advised  to  offer  her  the 
value  of  a  million  of  dollars  to  procure  her  assent  to  an  adjustment 
which  his  own  mind  approved.  What  he  dared  not  do,  inferred  some 
peril  I  suppose.  Yet  the  experience  of  twenty  years,  of  sixty  years, 
should  have  taught  all  men,  had  taught  many  who  shrunk  from  act 
ing  on  it,  that  the  Gordian  knot  must  be  cut,  not  unloosed — that  all 
further  attempt  to  find  the  true  line  must  be  abandoned  as  an  idle  and 
a  perilous  diplomacy  ;  and  that  a  boundary  must  be  made  by  u  bar- 


XUFUS   CI10ATK.  423 

gain  worthy  of  nations,  or  must  be  traced  by  the  point  of  the  bayonet. 
The  merit  of  Mr.  Webster  is  first  that  he  dared  to  open  the  nego 
tiation  on  this  basis.  I  say  the  boldness.  For  appreciate  the  domes 
tic  difficulties  which  attended  it.  In  its  nature  it  proposed  to  give  up 
something  whice  we  had  thought  our  own  for  half  a  century  ;  to  cede 
of  the  territory  of  more  than  one  state  ;  it  demanded  the'refore  the 
assent  of  those  states  by  formal  act,  committing  the  state  parties  in 
power  unequivocally  ;  it  was  to  be  undertaken  not  in  the  administra 
tion  of  Monroe — elected  by  the  whole  people — not  in  the  administra 
tion  of  Jackson,  whose  vast  popularity  could  carry  anything  and  with 
stand  anything  ;  but  just  when  the  death  of  President  Harrison  had 
scattered  his  party,  had  alienated  hearts,  had  severed  ties  and  dis 
solved  connections  indispensible  to  the  strength  of  administration  ;  cre 
ating  a  loud  call  on  Mr.  Webster  to  leave  the  cabinet — creating  almost 
the  appearance  of  an  unwillingness  that  he  should  contribute  to  its 
glory  even  by  largest  service  to  the  state. 

Yet  consider  finally  how  he  surmounted  every  difficulty.  I  will  not 
say  with  Lord  Palmerston,  in  Parliament,  that  there  was  "  nobody  in 
England  who  did  not  admit  it  a  very  bad  treaty  for  England."  But 
I  may  repeat  what  I  said  on  it  in  the  Senate  in  1843.  "  And  now 
what  does  the  world  see  ?  An  adjustment  concluded  by  a  special 
minister  at  Washington,  by  which  four  fifths  of  the  value  of  the  whole 
subject  in  controversy,  is  left  to  you  as  your  own  ;  and  by  which,  for 
that  one  fitth  which  England  desires  to  possess,  she  pays  you  over  and 
over,  in  the  national  equivalents,  imperial  equivalents,  such  as  a 
nation  may  give,  such  as  a  nation  may  accept,  satisfactory  to  your  in 
terests,  soothing  to  your  honor — the  navigation  of  the  St.  John — a 
concession  the  value  of  which  nobody  disputes,  a  concession  not  to 
Maine  alone,  but  to  the  whole  country,  to  commerce,  to  navigation, 
as  far  as  winds  blow  or  waters  roll — an  equivalent  of  unappreciablc 
value,  opening  an  ample  path  to  the  sea,  an  equivalent  in  part  for 
what  she  receives  of  the  territory  in  dispute — a  hundred  thousand 
acres  in  New  Hampshire  ;  fifty  thousand  acres  in  Vermont  and  New 
York  ;  the  point  of  land  commanding  the  great  military  way  to  and 
from  Canada  by  Lake  Champlain  ;  the  fair  and  fertile  island  of  St. 
George  ;  the  surrender  of  a  pertinacious  pretension  to  four  millions  of 
acres  westward  of  Lake  Superior."  Sir,  I  will  not  say  that  this  adjust 
ment  admits,  or  was  designed  to  admit,  that  our  title  to  the  whole 
territory  in  controversy  was  perfect  and  indisputable.  I  will  not  do 
so  much  injustice  to  the  accomplished  and  excellent  person  who  rep 
resented  the  moderation  and  the  good  sense  of  the  English  govern 
ment  and  people  in  this  negotiation.  I  cannot  adopt  even  for  the 
defense  of  a  treaty  which  I  so  much  approve,  the  language  of  a  writer 
in  the  London  Morning  Chronicle  of  September  last,  who  has  been 
said  to  be  Lord  Palmerston,  which  over  and  over  asserts — sub 
stantially  as  his  lordship  certainly  did  in  Parliament,  that  the  "adjust- 


424  A  M ERIC  A  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

ment  "virtually  acknowledges  the  American  claim  to  the  whole 
of  the  disputed  territory,"  and  that  ."it  gives  England  no  share 
at  all,  absolutely  none  ;  for  the  capitulation  virtually  and  prac 
tically  yields  up  the  whole  territory  to  the  United  States  and 
then  brings  back  a  small  part  of  it  in  exchange  for  the  right  of 
navigating  the  St.  John."  I  will  not  say  this.  But,  I  say  first, 
that  by  the  concession  of  everybody  it  is  a  better  treaty  than  the  ad 
ministration  of  President  Jackson  would  have  most  eagerly  concluded, 
if  by  the  offer  of  a  million  and  a  quarter  acres  of  land  they  could  have 
procured  the  assent  of  Maine  to  it.  That  treaty  she  rejected;  this  she 
accepts;  and  I  disparage  nobody  when  I  maintain  that  on  all  parts, 
and  aU  aspects,  of  this  question,  national  or  state,  military  or  indus 
trial,  her  opinion  is  worth  that  of  the  whole  country  beside.  I  say 
next,  that  the  trea,ty  admits  the  substantial  justice  of  your  general 
claim.  It  admits  that  in  its  utmost  extent  it  was  plausible,  formidable, 
and  made  in  pure  good  faith.  It  admits  before  the  nations  that  we 
have  not  been  rapacious;  have  not  made  false  clamor;  that  we  have 
asserted  our  own,  and  obtained  our  own.  Adjudging  to  you  the  pos 
session  of  four-fifths  indisputably,  she  gives  you  for  the  one-fifth  which 
you  concede,  equivalents,  given  as  equivalents,  eo  nomine,  on  purpose 
to  soothe  and  save  the  point  of  honor;  whose  intrinsic  and  compara 
tive  value  is  such  that  you  may  accept  them  as  equivalents  without  re 
proach  to  your  judgment,  or  your  firmness,  or  your  good  faith;  whose 
intrinsic  and  comparative  value,  tried  by  the  maxims,  weighed  in  the 
scales  of  imperial  iraffic,  make  them  a  compensation,  over  and  over 
again,  for  all  we  concede. 

But  I  linger  too  long  upon  his  public  life,  and  upon  this  one  of  its 
great  acts.  With  what  profound  conviction  of  all  the  difficulties  which 
beset  it;  with  what  anxieties  for  the  issue,  hope  and  fear  alternately 
preponderating,  he  entered  on  that  extreme  trial  of  capacity  and  good 
fortune,  and  carried  it  through,  I  shall  not  soon  forget.  As  if  it  were 
last  night,  I  recall  the  time  when,  after  the  Senate  had  ratified  it  in  an 
evening  executive  session,  by  a  vote  of  thirty-nine  to  nine,  I  person 
ally  carried  to  him  the  result  at  his  own  house,  and  in  the  presence  of 
his  wife.  Then,  indeed,  the  measure  of  his  glory  and  happiness 
seemed  full.  In  the  exuberant  language  of  Burke,  "I  stood  near 
him,  and  his  face,  to  use  the  expression  of  the  Scripture  of  the  first 
martyr,  was  as  if  it  had  been  the  face  of  an  angel.  '  Hope  elevated, 
and  joy  brightened  his  crest.'  "  I  do  not  know  how  others  feel,  but  if  I 
had  stood  in  that  situation,  I  would  not  have  exchanged  it  for  all  that 
kings  or  people  could  bestow. 

Such  eminence  and  such  hold  on  the  public  mind  as  he  attained  de 
mands  extraordinary  general  intellectual  power,  adequate  mental 
culture,  an  impressive,  attractive,  energetic,  and  great  character,  and 
extraordinary  specific  power  also  of  influencing  the  convictions  and 
actions  of  others  by  speech.  These  all  he  had. 


RCI-i'S   C JIG  ATE.  425 

That  in  the  quality  of  pure  and  sheer  power  of  intellect  he  was  of 
the  first  class  of  men  is,  I  think,  the  universal  judgment  of  all  who 
have  personally  witnessed  many  of  his  higher  displays,  and  of  all  who 
without  that  opportunity  have  studied  his  life  in  its  actions  and  influ 
ences,  and  studied  his  mind  in  its  recorded  thoughts.  Sometimes  it 
has  seemed  to  me  that  to  enable  one  to  appreciate  with  accuracy,  as  a 
psychological  speculation,  the  intrinsic  and  absolute  volume  and  tex 
ture  of  that  brain;  the  real  rate  and  measure  of  those  abilities;  it  was 
better  not  to  see  or  hear  him,  unless  you  could  hear  or  see  him  fre 
quently,  and  in  various  modes  of  exhibition;  for  undoubtedly  there 
was  something  in  his  countenance  and  bearing  so  expressive  of  com 
mand  ;  something  even  in  his  conversational  language  when  saying 
pai-va  summisse  et  modica  temperate,  so  exquisitely  plausible,  embody 
ing  the  likeness,  at  least,  of  a  rich  truth,  the  forms,  at  least,  of  a 
large  generalization,  in  an  epithet,  an  antithesis,  a  pointed  phrase,  a 
broad  and  peremptory  thesis — and  something  in  his  grander  forth- 
putting  when  roused  by  a  great  subject  or  occasion  exciting  his 
reason  and  touching  his  moral  sentiments  and  his  heart,  so  difficult  to 
be  resisted,  approaching  so  near,  going  so  far  beyond,  the  higher 
style  of  man,  that  altl  o  igh  it  left  you  a  very  good  witness  of  his 
power  of  influencing  others,  you  were  not  in  the  best  condition,  irr- 
mediately,  to  pronounce  on  the  quality,  or  the  source  of  the  influence. 
You  saw  the  flash  and  heard  the  peal;  and  felt  the  admiration  and 
fear;  but  from  what  region  it  was  launched,  and  by  what  divinity,  and 
from  what  Olympian  seat,  you  could  not  certainly  yet  tell.  To  do 
that  you  must,  if  you  saw  him  at  all,  see  him  many  times;  com 
pare  him  with  himself,  and  with  others;  follow  his  dazzling  career 
from  his  father's  house;  observe  from  what  competitors  he  won  those 
laurels;  study  his  discourses,  study  them  by  the  side  of  those  of  other 
great  men  of  this  country  and  time,  and  of  other  countries  and  times; 
conspicuous  in  the  same  fields  of  mental  achievement;  look  through 
the  crystal  water  of  the  style  down  to  the  golden  sands  of  thought; 
analyze  and  contrast  intellectual  power  somewhat ;  consider  what 
kind,  and  what  quantity  of  it  has  been  held  by  students  of  mind 
needful  in  order  to  great  eminence  in  the  higher  mathematics,  or 
metaphysics,  or  reason,  of  the  law ;  what  capacity  to  analyze, 
through  and  through,  to  the  primordial  elements  of  the  truths  of 
that  science  ;  yet  what  wisdom  and  sobriety,  in  order  to  control 
the  wantonness  and  shun  the  absurdities  of  a  mere  scholastic 
logic,  by  systematizing  ideas,  and  combining  them,  and  repressing 
one  by  another,  thus  producing,  not  a  collection  of  intense  and  con 
flicting  paradoxes,  but  a  code — scientifically  coherent,  and  practically 
useful — consider  what  description  and  what  quantity  of  mind  have 
been  held  needful  by  students  of  mind  in  order  to  conspicuous  emi 
nence,  long  maintained,  in  statesmanship;  that  great  practical  science, 
that  great  philosophical  art — whose  ends  are  the  existence,  happiness, 


426  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

and  honor  of  a  nation:  whose  truths  are  to  be  drawn  from  the  widest 
survey  of  man;  of  social  man;  of  the  particular  race,  and  particular 
community  for  which  a  government  is  to  be  made,  or  kept,  or  a  policy 
to  be  provided;  "  philosophy  in  action,"  demanding  at  once,  or  afford 
ing  place  for,  the  highest  speculative  genius,  and  the  most  skilful  con 
duct  of  men  and  of  affairs;  and,  finally,  consider  what  degree  and 
kind  of  mental  power  has  been  found  to  be  required  in  order  to  influ 
ence  the  reason  of  an  audience  and  a  nation  by  speech — not  magnetiz 
ing  the  mere  nervous  or  emotional  nature  by  an  effort  of  that  nature 
— but  operating  on  reason  by  reason — a  great  reputation  in  forensic 
and  deliberative  eloquence,  maintained  and  advancing  for  a  life  time 
— it  is  thus  that  we  come  to  be  sure  that  his  intellectual  power  was 
as  real  and  as  uniform,  as  its  very  happiest  particular  display  had 
been  imposing  and  remarkable. 

It  was  not  quite  so  easy  to  analyze  that  power,  to  compare  or  con 
trast  it  with  that  of  other  mental  celebrities,  and  show  how  it  differed 
or  resembled,  as  it  was  to  discern  its  existence. 

Whether  he  would  have  excelled  as  much  in  other  fields  of  exertion 
— in  speculative  philosophy,  for  example,  in  any  of  its  departments — 
is  a  problem  impossible  to  determine  and  needless  to  move.  To  me 
it  seems  quite  clear  that  the  whole  wealth  of  his  powers,  his  whole 
emotional  nature,  his  eloquent  feeling,  his  matchless  capacity  to  affect 
others'  conduct  by  affecting  their  practical  judgments,  could  not  have 
been  known,  could  not  have  been  poured  forth  in  a  stream  so  rich  and 
strong  and  full,  could  not  have  so  reacted  on,  and  aided  and  winged  the 
mighty  intelligence,  in  any  other  walk  of  mind,  or  life,  than  that  he 
chose — that  in  any  other  there  must  have  been  some  disjoining  of 
qualities  which  God  had  united — some  divorce  of  pure  intellect  from 
the  help  or  hindrances  or  companionship  of  common  sense  and  beauti 
ful  genius;  and  that  in  any  field  of  speculative  ideas  but  half  of  him, 
or  part  of  him,  could  have  found  its  sphere.  What  that  part  might 
have  been  or  done,  it  is  vain  to  inquire. 

I  have  been  told  that  the  assertion  has  been  hazarded  that  he  "  was 
great  in  understanding;  deficient  in  the  large  reason;"  and  to  prove 
this  distinction  he  is  compared  disadvantageously,  with  "  Socrates,  Ar 
istotle,  Plato,  Leibnitz,  Newton,  and  Descartes,"  if  this  means  that 
he  did  not  devote  his  mind,  such  as  it  was,  to  their  speculations,  it  is 
true,  but  that  would  not  prove  that  he  had  not  as  much  "higher 
reason.'  Where  was  Bacon's  higher  reason  when  he  was  composing 
his  reading  on  the  Statue  of  Uses?  Had  he  lost  it?  or  was  he  only 
not  employing  it  ?  or  was  he  employing  it  on  investigation  of  law  ? 
If  it  means  that  he  had  not  as  much  absolute  intellectual  power  as 
they,  or  could  not,  in  their  departments,  have  done  what  they  did,  it 
may  be  dismissed  as  a  dogma,  incapable  of  proof,  and  incapable  of 
refutation;  ineffectual  as  a  disparagement;  unphilosophical  as  a 
comparison. 


RUPL'S   CHOATE.  427 

It  is  too  common  with  those  who  come  from  the  reveries  of  clois 
tered  speculation,  to  judge  a  practical  life,  to  say  of  him  and  such  as 
he,  that  "they  do  not  enlarge  universal  law,  and  first  principles,  and 
philosophical  ideas;"  that  "they  add  no  new  maxim  formed  by  in 
duction  out  of  human  history  and  old  thought."  In  this  there  is  some 
truth;  and  yet  it  totally  fails  to  prove  that  they  do  not  possess  all  the 
intellectual  power,  and  all  the  specific  form  and  intellectual  power  re 
quired  for  such  a  description  of  achievement;  and  it  totally  fails,  too, 
to  prove,  that  they  do  not  use  it  quite  as  truly  to  "  the  glory  of  God, 
and  the  bettering  of  man's  estate."  Whether  they  possess  such  power 
or  not,  the  evidence  does  not  disprove;  and  it  is  a  pedantic  dogmatism, 
if  it  is  not  a  malignant  dogmatism,  which,  from  such  evidence,  pronoun 
ces  that  they  do  not;  but  it  is  doubtless  so,  that  by  an  original  bias,  by 
accidental  circumstances  or  deliberate  choice,  he  determined  early  to 
devote  himself  to  a  practical  and  great  duty,  and  that  was  10  uphold  are- 
cent,  delicate,  and  complex  political  system,  which  his  studies,  his  saga 
city,  taught  him,  as  Solan  learned,  was  the  best  the  people  could  bear;  to 
uphold  it;  to  adapt  its  essential  principles  and  its  actual  organism  to 
the  great  changes  of  his  time;  the  enlarging  territory;  enlarging  num 
bers;  sharper  antagonisms;  mightier  passions;  a  new  nationality;  and 
under  it,  and  by  means  of  it,  and  by  a  steady  government,  a  wise 
policy  of  business,  a  temperate  conduct  of  foreign  relations,  to  enable  a 
people  to  develop  their  resources,  and  fulfil  their  mission.  This  he 
selected  as  his  work  on  earth;  this  his  task;  this,  if  well  done,  his 
consolation,  his  joy,  his  triumph!  To  this,  call  it,  in  comparison  with 
the  meditations  of  philosophy,  humble  or  high,  he  brought  all  the  vast 
gifts  of  intellect,  whatever  they  were,  wherewith  God  had  enriched 
him.  And  now,  do  they  infer  that,  because  he  selected  such  a  work 
to  do,  he  could  not  have  possessed  the  higher  form  of  intellectual 
power?  or  do  they  say  that,  because  having  selected  it,  he  performed 
it  with  a  masterly  and  uniform  sagacity,  and  prudence,  and  good 
sense;  using  ever  the  appropriate  means  to  the  selected  end;  that 
therefore  he  could  not  have  possessed  the  higher  form  of  intellectual 
power?  Because  all  his  life  long,  he  recognized  that  his  vocation  was 
that  of  a  statesman  and  a  jurist,  not  that  of  a  thinker  and  dreamer  in 
the  shade,  still  less  of  a  general  agitator;  that  his  duties  connected 
themselves  mainly  with  an  existing  stupendous  political  order  of 
things,  to  be  kept — to  be  adapted  with  all  possible  civil  discretion  and 
temper  to  the  growth  of  the  nation — but  by  no  means  to  be  exchanged 
for  any  quantity  of  amorphous  matter  in  the  form  of  "  universal  law," 
or  new  maxims  and  great  ideas  born  since  the  last  change  of  the  moon 
— because  he  quite  habitually  spoke  the  language  of  the  Constitution 
and  the  law,  not  the  phraseology  of  a  new  philosophy;  confining  him 
self  very  much  to  inculcating  historical,  traditional,  and  indispensable 
maxims — neutrality,  justice,  good  faith,  observance  of  fundamental 
compacts  of  union  and  the  like— because  it  was  America— our  America 


42§  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

• — he  sought  to  preserve,  and  to  set  forward  to  her  glory — not  so  much 
an  abstract  conception  of  humanity;  because  he  could  combine  many 
ideas,  many  events,  many  antagonisms,  in  a  harmonious  and  noble 
practical  politics,  instead  of  fastening  on  one  only  and — that  sure  sign 
of  small  or  perverted  ability— aggravating  to  disease  and  falsehood — 
it  is  therefore  inferred  that  he  had  not  the  larger  form  of  intellectual 
p:>wer. 

And  this  power  was  not  oppressed,  but  aided  and  accomplished  by 
exercise  the  most  constant,  the  most  severe,  the  most  stimulant,  and 
by  a  force  of  will  as  remarkable  as  his  genius,  and  by  adequate  mental 
and  tasteful  culture.  How  much  the  eminent  greatness  it  reached  is 
due  to  the  various  and  lofty  competition  to  which  he  brought,  if  he 
could,  the  most  careful  preparation — competition  with  adversaries  cum 
quibus  certare  erat  gloriositis,  quani  omnino  adversaries  non  habere,  cum 
praesertim  non  modo,  nunquam  sit  aut  illoruin  ab  ipso  cttrsus  impeditus, 
aut  ab  ipsis  suus,  sed  contra  semper  alter  ab  altero  adjustus,  et  communi- 
cctndo,  et  nionendo,  et  favendo,  you  may  well  appreciate. 

I  claim  much,  too,  under  the  name  of  mere  mental  culture,  Remark 
his  style.  I  allow  its  full  weight  to  the  Horatian  maxim  scribendi  recte 
sapereest  et principium  et  fans,  and  I  admit  that  he  had  deep  and  exqui 
site  judgment,  largely  of  the  gift  of  God.  But  such  a  style  as  his  is 
due  also  to  art,  to  practice — in  the  matter  of  style,  incessant  to  great 
examples  of  fine  writing  turned  by  the  nightly  and  the  daily  hand  ;  to 
Cicero,  through  whose  pellucid  deep  seas  the  pearl  shows  distinct,  and 
large  and  near,  as  if  within  the  arm's  reach  ;  to  Virgil,  whose  magic 
of  words,  whose  exquisite  structure  and  "  rich  economy  of  expression," 
no  other  writer  ever  equalled  ;  to  our  English  Bible,  and  especially  to 
the  prophetical  writings,  and  of  these  especially  to  Ezekiel,  of  some  of 
whose  peculiarities,  among  them  that  of  the  repetition  of  single  words, 
or  phrases  for  emphasis  and  impression,  a  friend  has  called  my  atten 
tion  to  some  very  striking  illustrations;  to  Shakespere,  of  the  style  of 
whose  comic  dialogue  we  may,  in  the  language  of  the  great  critic,  assert 
"  that  it  is  that  which  in  the  English  nation  is  never  to  become  obso 
lete,  a  certain  mode  of  phraseology  so  consonant  and  congenial  to 
analogy,  to  principles  of  the  language,  as  to  remain  settled  and  unal 
tered — a  style  above  grossness,  below  modish  and  pedantic  forms  of 
speech,  where  propriety  resides;"  to  Addison,  whom  Johnson,  Mack 
intosh  and  Macaulay,  concur  to  put  at  the  head  of  all  fine  writers,  for 
the  amenity,  delicacy,  and  unostentatious  elegance  of  his  English  ; 
to  Pope,  polished,  condensed,  sententious;  to  Johnson  and  Burke,  in 
whom  all  the  affluence  and  all  the  energy  of  our  tongue  in  both  its 
great  elements  of  Saxon  and  Latin,  might  be  exemplified;  to  the  study 
and  comparison,  but  not  the  copying  of  authors  such  as  these;  to  habits 
of  writing  and  speaking  and  conversing  on  the  capital  theory  of  always 
doing  his  best — thus,  somewhat,  I  think,  was  acquired  that  remark 
able  production,  "  the  last  work  of  combined  study  and  genius,"  his 
rich,  clear,  correct,  harmonious,  and  weighty  style  of  prose. 


KUFUS   CHOATE.  429 

Beyond  these  studies  and  exercises  of  taste,  he  had  read  variously 
and  judiciously.  If  any  public  man,  or  any  man,  had  more  thoroughly 
mastered  British  constitutional  and  general  history,  or  the  history  of 
British  legislation,  or  could  deduce  the  progress,  errors,  causes,  and 
hindrances  of  British  liberty  in  more  prompt,  exact,  and  copious  de 
tail,  or  had  in  his  memory,  at  any  given  moment,  a  more  ample  politi 
cal  biography,  or  political  literature,  I  do  not  know  him.  His  library 
of  English  history,  and  of  all  history,  was  always  rich,  select,  and 
catholic,  and  I  well  recollect  hearing  him  in  1819,  while  attending 
a  commencement  of  this  college  at  an  evening  party,  sketch,  with 
great  emphasis  and  interest  of  manner,  the  merits  of  George  Buchanan, 
the  historian  of  Scotland — his  latinity  and  eloquence  almost  equal  to 
Livy's,  his  love  of  liberty  and  his  genius  greater,  and  his  title  to  credit 
not  much  worse.  American  history  and  American  political  literature 
he  had  by  heart.  The  long  series  of  influences  that  trained  us  for 
representative  and  free  government;  that  other  series  of  influences 
which  moulded  us  into  a  united  government — the  colonial  era — the 
the  age  of  controversy  before  the  revolution;  every  scene  and  every 
person  in  that  great  tragic  action — the  age  of  controversy  following 
the  revolution,  and  preceding  the  Constitution,  unlike  the  earlier,  in 
which  we  divided  among  ourselves  on  the  greatest  questions  which 
can  engage  the  mind  of  America — the  questions  of  the  existence  of  a 
national  government,  of  the  continued  existence  of  the  state  govern- 
men%  on  the  partition  of  powers,  on  the  umpirage  of  disputes  between 
them — a  controversy  on  which  the  destiny  of  the  New  World  was 
staked;  every  problem,  which  has  successively  engaged  our  politics, 
and  every  name  which  has  figured  in  them,  the  whole  stream  of  our 
time  was  open,  clear,  and  present  ever  to  his  eye. 

I  think,  too,  that,  though  not  a  frequent  and  ambitious  citer  of  au 
thorities,  he  had  read,  in  the  course  of  the  study  of  his  profession  or 
politics,  and  had  meditated  all  the  great  writers  and  thinkers  by  whom 
the  principles  of  republican  government,  and  all  free  governments, 
are  most  authoritatively  expounded.  Aristotle,  Cicero,  Machiavel, 
one  of  whose  discourses  on  Livy  maintains  in  so  masterly  an  argu 
ment,  how  much  wiser  and  more  constant  are  the  people  than  the 
princes — a  doctrine  of  liberty  consolatory  and  full  of  joy — Harrington, 
Milton,  Sidney,  Locke,  I  know  he  had  read  and  weighed. 

Other  classes  of  information  there  were,  partly  obtained  from  books, 
partly  from  observation — to  some  extent  referable  to  his  two  main 
employments  of  politics  and  law — by  which  he  was  distinguished  re 
markably.  Thus,  nobody  but  was  struck  with  his  knowledge  of  civil  and 
physical  geography,  and,  to  a  less  extent,  of  geology  and  races  ;  of  all 
the  great  routes  and  marts  of  our  foreign,  coastwise,  and  interior  com 
merce;  the  subjects  which  it  exchanges,  the  whole  circle  of  industry  it 
comprehended  and  passes  around;  the  kinds  of  our  mechanical  and 
manufacturing  productions,  and  their  relations  to  all  labor,  and  life; 
the  history,  theories,  and  practice  of  agriculture,  our  own  and  that  of 


43°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

other  countries,  and  its  relations  to  government,  liberty,  happiness, 
and  the  character  of  nations.  This  kind  of  information  enriched  and 
assisted  all  his  public  efforts;  but  to  appreciate  the  variety  and  ac 
curacy  of  his  knowledge,  and  even  the  true  compass  of  his  mind,  you 
must  have  had  some  familiarity  with  his  friendly-written  correspond 
ence,  and  you  must  have  conversed  with  him,  with  some  degree  of 
freedom.  There  more  than  in  senatiorial  or  forensic  debate, 
gleamed  the  true  riches  of  his  genius,  as  well  as  the  goodness  of  his 
large  heart,  and  the  kindness  of  his  noble  nature.  There,  with  no 
longer  a  great  part  to  discharge,  no  longer  compelled  to  weigh  and 
measure  propositions,  to  tread  the  dizzy  heights  which  part  the  antago 
nism  of  the  Constitution,  to  put  aside  illusions  and  illustrations,  which 
crowded  on  his  mind  in  action,  but  which  the  dignity  of  a  public  ap 
pearance  had  to  reject — in  the  confidence  of  hospitality,  which  ever 
lie  dispensed  as  a  prince  who  also  was  a  friend — his  memory,  one  of 
his  most  extraordinary  faculties,  quite  in  proportion  to  all  the  rest, 
swept  free  over  the  readings  and  labors  of  more  than  half  a  century; 
and,  then,  allusions,  direct  and  ready  quotations,  a  passing,  mature 
criticism,  sometimes  only  a  recollection  of  the  mere  emotions  which  a 
glorious  passage  or  interesting  event  had  once  excited,  darkening  for 
a  moment  the  face,  and  filling  the  eye — often  an  instructive  exposition 
of  a  current  maxim  of  philosophy  or  politics,  the  history  of  an  inven 
tion,  the  recital  of  some  incident  casting  a  new  light  on  some  trans 
action  or  some  institution — this  flow  of  unstudied  conversation,  quite 
as  remarkable  as  any  other  exhibition  of  his  mind,  better  than  any 
other,  perhaps,  at  once  opened  an  unexpected  glimpse  of  his  various 
acquirements,  and  gave  you  to  experience  delightedly  that  the  "  mild 
sentiments  have  their  eloquence  as  well  as  the  stormy  passions." 

There  must  be  added  next  the  element  of  an  impressive  character, 
inspiring  regard,  trust,  and  admiration,  not  unmingled  with  love.  It 
had,  I  think,  intrinsically  a  charm  such  as  belongs  only  to  a  good,  noble, 
and  beautiful  nature.  In  its  combination  with  so  much  fame,  so  much 
force  of  will,  and  so  much  intellect,  it  filled  and  fascinated  the  imagi 
nation  and  heart.  It  was  affectionate  in  childhood  and  youth,  and  it  was 
more  than  ever  so  in  the  few  last  months  of  his  life.  It  is  the  universal 
testimony  that  he  gave  to  his  parents,  in  largest  measure,  honor,  love, 
obedience;  that  he  eagerly  appropriated  the  first  means  which  he  could 
command  to  relieve  the  father  from  the  debts  contracted  to  educate 
his  brother  and  himself — that  he  selected  his  first  place  of  professional 
practice  that  he  might  soothe  the  coming  on  of  his  old  age — that  all 
through  life  he  neglected  no  occasion,  sometimes  when  leaning  on  the 
arm  of  a  friend,  alone,  with  faltering  voice,  sometimes  in  the  presence 
of  great  assemblies,  where  the  tide  of  general  emotion  made  it  grace 
ful,  to  express  his  "  affectionate  veneration  of  him  who  reared  and 
defended  the  log  cabin  in  which  his  elder  brothers  and  sisters  were 
born,  against  savage  violence  and  destruction;  cherished  all  the 


KUFUS  CHOATE.  431 

domestic  virtues  beneath  its  roof,  and  through  the  fire  and  blood  of 
Borne  years  of  Revolutionary  war,  shrank  from  no  danger,  no  toil,  no 
sacrifice,  to  serve  his  country,  and  to  raise  his  children  to  a  condition 
better  than  his  own." 

Equally  beautiful  was  his  love  of  all  his  kindred,  and  of  all  his 
friends.  When  I  hear  him  accused  of  selfishness,  and  a  cold,  bad 
nature,  I  recall  him  lying  sleepless  all  night,  not  without  tears  of  boy 
hood,  conferring  with  Ezekiel  how  the  darling  desire  of  both  hearts 
should  be  compassed,  and  he  too  admitted  to  the  precious  privileges 
of  education;  courageously  pleading  the  cause  of  both  brothers  in  the 
morning;  prevailing  by  the  wise  and  discerning  affection  of  the 
mother;  suspending  his  studies  of  the  law,  and  registering  deeds,  and 
teaching  school  to  earn  the  means,  for  both,  of  availing  themselves  of 
the  opportunity  which  the  parental  self-sacrifice  had  placed  within 
their  reach — loving  him  through  life,  mourning  him  when  dead,  with 
a  love  and  a  sorrow  very  wonderful — passing  the  sorrow  of  woman;  I 
recall  the  husband,  the  father  of  the  living  and  of  the  early  departed,  the 
friend,  the  counsellor,  of  many  years,  and  my  heart  grows  too  full 
and  liquid  for  the  refutation  of  words. 

His  'affectionate  nature,  craving  ever  friendship,  as  well  as  the 
presence  of  kindred  blood,  diffused  itself  through  all  his  private  life, 
gave  sincerity  to  all  his  hospitalities,  kindness  to  his  eye,  warmth  to 
the  pressure  of  his  hand;  made  his  greatness  and  genius  unbend  them 
selves  to  the  playfulness  of  childhood,  flowed  out  in  graceful  memo 
ries  indulged  of  the  past  or  the  dead,  of  incidents  when  life  was  young 
and  promised  to  be  happy — gave  generous  sketches  of  his  rivals — the 
high  contention  now  hidden  by  the  handful  of  earth — hours  passed 
fifty  years  years  ago  with  great  authors,  recalled  for  the  vernal  emo 
tions  which  then  they  made  to  live  and  revel  in  the  soul.  And  from 
these  conversations  of  friendship,  no  man— *no  man,  old  or  young — 
went  away  to  remember  one  word  of  profaneness,  one  allusion  of  in 
delicacy,  one  impure  thought,  one  unbelieving  suggestion,  one  doubt 
cast  on  the  reality  of  virtue,  of  patriotism,  of  enthusiasm,  of  the 
progress  of  man — one  doubt  cast  on  righteousness,  or  temperance,  or 
judgment  to  come. 

Every  one  of  his  tastes  and  recreations  announced  the  same  type  of  * 
character.  His  love  of  agriculture,  of  sports  in  the  open  air,  of  the 
outward  world  in  starlight  and  storms,  and  sea  and  boundless  wilder 
ness — partly  a  result  of  the  influences  of  the  first  fourteen  years  of  his 
life,  perpetuated,  like  its  other  affections  and  its  other  lessons  of  a 
mother's  love,  the  Psalms,  the  Bible,  the  stories  of  the  wars— partly 
the  return  of  an  unsophisticated  and  healthful  nature,,  tiring,  for  a 
space,  of  the  idle  business  of  political  life,  its  distinctions,  its  arti 
ficialities,  to  employments,  to  sensations  which  interest^  without  agi 
tating  the  universal'  race  alike,  as  God  has  framed  it;  in  which  one 
feels  himself  only  a  man,  fashioned  from  the  earth,  set  to  till  it,  ap- 


432 


A  M ERIC  A  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 


pointed  to  return  to  it,  yet  made  in  the  image  of  his  Maker,  and  with 
a  spirit  that  shall  not  die — all  displayed  a  man  whom  the  most  various 
intercourse  with  the  world,  the  longest  career  of  strife  and  honors,  the 
consciousness  of  intellectual  supremacy,  the  coming  in  of  a  wide  fame, 
constantly  enlarging,  left  as  he  was  at  first,  natural,  simple,  manly, 
genial,  kind. 

You  will  all  concur,  I  think,  with  a  learned  friend  who  thus  calls  my 
attention  to  the  resemblance  of  his  character,  in  some  of  these  partic 
ulars,  to  that  of  Walter  Scott. 

Nature  endowed  both  with  athletic  frames  and  a  noble  presence; 
both  passionately  loved  rural  life,  its  labors,  and  sports;  possessed  a 
manly  simplicity  free  from  all  affectation,  genial  and  social  tastes,  full 
minds,  and  happy  elocution;  both  stamped  themselves  with  indelible 
marks  upon  the  age  in  which  they  lived;  both  were  laborious,  and  al 
ways  with  high  and  virtuous  aims,  ardent  in  patriotism,  overflowing 
with  love  of  kindred  blood,  and,  above  all,  frank  and  unostentatious 
Christians. 

I  have  learned  by  evidence  the  most  direct  and  satisfactory,  that  in 
the  last  months  of  his  life,  the  whole  affectionateness  of  his  nature; 
his  consideration  of  others;  his  gentleness;  his  desire  to  make  them 
happy  and  to  see  them  happy,  seemed  to  come  out  in  more  and  more 
beautiful  and  habitual  expression  than  ever  before.  The  long  day's 
public  tasks  were  felt  to  be  done;  the  cares,  the  uncertainties,  the 
mental  conflicts  of  high  place,  were  ended;  and  he  came  home  to  re 
cover  himsell  for  the  few  years  which  he  might  still  expect  would  be 
his  before  he  should  go  hence  to  be  here  no  more.  And  there,  I  am 
assured  and  fully  believe,  no  unbecoming  regrets  pursued  him;  no  dis 
content,  as  for  injustice  suffered  or  expectations  unfulfilled;  no  self" 
reproach  for  anything  done  or  anything  omitted  by  himself  ;  no  irri 
tation,  no  peevishness  unworthy  of  his  noble  nature;  but  instead,  love 
and  hope  for  his  country,  when  she  became  the  subject  of  conversa 
tion;  and  for  all  around  him,  the  dearest  and  most  indifferent,  for  all 
breathing  things  about  him,  the  overflow  of  the  kindest  heart  growing 
in  gentleness  and  benevolence;  paternal,  patriarchal  affections,  seem 
ing  to  become  more  natural,  warm,  and  communicative  every  hour, 
Softer  and  yet  brighter  grew  the  tints  on  the  sky  of  parting  day;  and 
the  last  lingering  rays,  more  even  than  the  glories  of  noon,  announced 
how  divine  was  the  source  from  which  they  proceeded;  how  incapable 
to  be  quenched;  how  certain  to  rise  on  a  morning  which  no  night 
should  follow. 

Such  a  character  was  made  to  be  loved.  It  was  loved.  Those  who 
knew  and  saw  it  in  its  hour  of  calm — those  who  could  repose  on  that 
soft  green,  loved  him.  His  plain  neighbors  loved  him;  and  one  said, 
when  he  was  laid  in  his  grave,  "  How  lonesome  the  world  seems  !" 
Educated  young  men  loved  him.  The  ministers  of  the  gospel,  the 
general  intelligence  of  the  country,  the  masses  afar  off,  loved  him. 


IWFUS  CIIO ATE.  433 

Erue,  they  had  not  found  in  his  speeches,  read  by  millions,  so  much 
adulation  of  the  people;  so  much  of  the  music  which  robs  the  public 
reason  of  itself;  so  many  phrases  of  humanity  and  philanthropy;  and 
some  had  told  them  he  was  lofty  and  cold — solitary  in  his  greatness; 
but  every  year  they  came  nearer  and  nearer  to  him,  and  as  they  came 
nearer  they  loved  him  better;  they  heard  how  tender  the  son  had 
been;  the  husband,  the  brother,  the  father,  the  friend,  the  neighbor; 
that  he  was  plain,  simple,  natural,  generous,  hospitable — the  heart 
larger  than  the  brain;  that  he  loved  little  children  and  reverenced  God, 
the  Scriptures,  the  Sabbath  day,  the  Constitution,  and  the  law — and 
their  hearts  clave  unto  him.  More  truly  of  him  than  even  of  the  great 
naval  darling  of  England  might  it  be  said,  that  "  his  presence  would 
set  the  church-bells  ringing,  and  give  school-boys  a  holiday — would 
bring  children  from  school  and  old  men  from  the  chimney-corner,  to 
gaze  on  him  ere  he  died."  The  great  and  unavailing  lamentation  first 
revealed  the  deep  place  he  had  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen. 

You  are  now  to  add  to  this  his  extraordinary  power  of  influencing 
the  convictions  of  others  by  speech,  and  you  have  completed  the  survey 
of  the  means  of  his -greatness.  And  here  again  I  begin  by  admir 
ing  an  aggregate,  made  up  of  excellencies  and  triumphs,  ordinarily 
deemed  incompatible.  He  spoke  with  consummate  ability  to  the 
bench,  and  yet  exactly  as,  according  to  every  sound  canon  of  taste 
and  ethics,  the  bench  ought  to  be  addressed.  He  spoke  with  consum 
mate  ability  to  the  jury,  and  yet  exactly  as,  according  to  every  sound 
canon,  that  totally  different  tribunal  ought  to  be  addressed.  In  the 
halls  of  Congress,  before  the  people  assembled  for  political  discussion  in 
masses,  before  audiences  smaller  and  more  select,  assembled  for  some 
solemn  commemoration  of  the  past  or  of  the  dead;  in  each  of  these, 
again,  his  speech,  of  the  first  form  of  ability,  was  exactly  adapted  also 
to  the  critical  proprieties  of  the  place;  each  achieved,  when  delivered, 
the  most  instant  and  specific  success  of  eloquence,  some  of  them  in  a 
splendid  and  remarkable  degree,  and  yet  stranger  still,  when  reduced 
to  writing  as  they  fell  from  his  lips,  they  compose  a  body  of  reading, 
in  many  volumes,  solid,  clear,  rich,  and'  full  of  harmony,  a  classical 
and  permanent  political  literature. 

And  yet  all  these  modes  of  his  eloquence,  exactly  adapted  each  to 
its  stage  and  its  end,  \vere  stamped  with  its  image  and  superscription, 
identified  by  characteristics  incapable  to  be  counterfeited,  and  impos 
sible  to  be  mistaken.  The  same  high  power  of  reason,  intent  in  every 
one  to  explore  and  display  some  truth;  some  truth  of  judicial,  or  his 
torical,  or  biographical  fact;  some  truth  of  law,  reduced  by  construc 
tion,  perhaps,  or  by  illation;  some  truth  of  policy,  for  want  whereof  a 
nation,  generations,  may  be  the  \vorse;  reason  seeking  and  unfolding 
truth;  the  same  tone  in  all  of  deep  earnestness,  expressive  of  strong  desire 
that  that  which  he  felt  to  be  important  should  be  accepted  as  true  and 
spring  up  to  action,  the  same  transparent,  plain,  forcible,  and  direct 


434  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

speech,  conveying  his  exact  thought  to  the  mind,  not  something  less 
or  more;  the  same  sovereignty  of  form,  of  brow,  and  eye,  and  man 
ner — everywhere  the  intellectual  king  of  men,  standing  before  you — 
that  same  marvelousness  of  qualities  and  results,  residing,  I  know  not 
where,  in  words,  in  pictures,  in  the  order  of  ideas,  in  felicities  indes 
cribable,  by  means  whereof,  coming  from  his  tongue,  all  things  seemed 
mended,  truth  seemed  more  true,  probability  more  plausible,  greatness 
more  grand,  goodness  more  awful,  every  affection  more  tender  than 
when  coming  from  other  tongues — these  are  in  all  his  eloquence, 
But  sometimes  it  became  individualized  and  discriminated  even  from 
itself;  sometimes  place  and  circumstances,  great  interests  at  stake, 
and  stage,  an  audience  fitted  for  the  highest  historical  action,  a  crisis, 
personal  or  national,  upon  him,  stirred  the  depths  of  that  emotional 
nature  as  the  anger  of  the  goddess  stirs  the  sea  on  which  the  great 
epic  is  beginning;  strong  passions,  themselves  kindled  to  intensity 
quickened  every  faculty  to  a  new  life ;  the  stimulated  associations  of  ideas 
brought  all  treasures  of  thought  and  knowledge  within  command,  the 
spell,  which  of  ten  held  his  imagination  fast,  dissolved,  and  she  arose  and 
gave  him  to  choose  of  her  urn  of  gold,  earnestness  became  vehemence, 
the  simple,  perspicuous,  measured  and  direct  language  became  ahead- 
long,  full,  and  burning  tide  of  speech,  the  discourse  of  reason,  wisdom, 
gravity,  and  beauty,  changed  to  that  AEIVOT^,  that  rarest  consum 
mate  eloquence,  grand,  rapid,  pathetic,  terrible,  the  aliqidd  iminen- 
snm  infinitumque  that  Cicero  might  have  recognized;  the  master 
triumph  of  man  in  the  rarest  opportunity  of  his  noblest  power. 

Such  elevation  above  himself,  in  Congressional  debate,  was  most  un 
common.  Some  such  there  were  in  the  great  discussions  of  executive 
power  following  the  removal  of  the  deposits,  which  they  who  heard 
them  will  never  forget,  and  some  which  rest  in  the  tradition  of  hearers 
or.ly.  But  there  were  other  fields  of  oratory  on  which,  under  the  in 
fluence  of  more  uncommon  springs  of  inspiration,  he  exemplified  in  still 
other  forms,  an  eloquence  in  which  I  do  not  know  that  he  has  had  a 
superior  among  men.  Addressing  masses  by  tens  of  thousands  in  the 
open  air,  on  the  urgent  political  questions  of  the  day  ;  or  designated  to 
lead  the  meditations  of  an  hour  devoted  to  the  remembrance  of  some 
national  era,  or  of  some  incident  marking  the  progress  of  the  nation, 
lifting  him  up  to  a  view  of  what  is  and  what  is  past,  and  some  indistinct 
revelation  of  the  glory  that  lies  in  the  future,  or  of  some  great  historical 
name,  just  borne  by  the  nation  to  his  tomb — we  have  learned  that  then 
and  there,  at  the  base  of  Bunker  Hill,  before  the  corner  stone  was  laid, 
and  again  when  from  the  finished  column  the  centuries  looked  on  him  ;  in 
Faneuil  Hall,  mourning  for  those  with  whose  spoken  or  written  elo 
quence  of  freedom  its  arches  had  so  often  resounded  ;  on  the  rock  of 
Plymouth  ;  before  the  Capitol,  of  which  there  shall  not  be  one  stone  left 
on  another,  before  his  memory  shall  have  ceased  to  live — in  such  scenes, 
unfettered  by  the  laws  of  forensic  or  parliamentary  debate,  multitudes 


S  ciio ATI:.  435 

uncounted  lifting  up  their  eyes  to  him  ;  some  great  historical  scene  of 
America  around — all  symbols  of  her  glory,  and  art,  and  power,  and  for 
tune,  there — voices  of  the  past,  not  unheard — shapes  beckoning  from 
the  future,  not  unseen — sometimes  that  mighty  intellect,  borne  upwards 
to  a  height  and  kindled  to  an  illumination  which  we  shall  see  no  more, 
wrought  out,  as  it  were,  in  an  instant,  a  picture  of  vision,  warning,  pre 
diction  ;  the  progress  of  the  nation  ;  the  contrasts  of  its  eras  ;  the  heroic 
deaths  ;  the  motives  to  patriotism  ;  the  maxims  and  arts  imperial  by 
which  the  glory  has  been  gathered  and  may  be  heightened,  wrought  out 
in  an  instant,  a  picture  to  fade  only  when  all  record  of  our  mind  shall 
die. 

In  looking  over  the  public  remains  of  his  oratory,  it  is  striking  to  re 
mark  how,  even  in  that  most  sober,  and  massive  understanding  and 
nature,  you  see  gathered  and  expressed  the  characteristic  sentiments  and 
the  passing  time  of  our  America.  It  is  the  strong  old  oak,  which 
ascends  before  you  ;  yet  our  soil,  our  heaven,  are  attested  in  it,  as  per 
fectly  as  if  it  were  a  flower  that  could  grow  in  no  other  climate, 
and  in  no  other  hour  of  the  year  or  day.  Let  me  instance  in  one  thing 
only.  It  is  a  peculiarity  of  some  schools  of  eloquence,  that  they  embody 
and  utter,  not  merely  the  individual  genius  and  character  of  the  speaker 
but  a  national  consciousness,  a  national  era,  a  mood,  ahope,  a  dread, 
a  despair,  in  which  you  listen  to  the  spoken  history  of  the  time.  There 
is  an  eloquence  of  an  expiring  nation  ;  such  as  seems  to  sadden  the 
glorious  speech  of  Demosthenes  ;  such  as  breathes  grand  and  gloomy 
from  the  visions  of  the  prophets  of  the  last  days  of  Israel  and  Judah  ; 
such  as  gave  a  spell  to  the  expression  of  Grattan,  and  of  Kossuth — the 
sweetest,  most  mournful,  most  awful  of  the  words  which  man  may  utter, 
or  which  man  may  hear,  the  eloquence  of  a  perishing  nation.  There  is 
another  eloquence,  in  which  the  national  consciousness  of  a  young  or 
renewed  and  vast  strength  ;  or  trust  in  a  dazzling,  certain,  and  limitless 
future  ;  an  inward  glorying  in  victories  yet  to  be  won,  sounds  out  as  by- 
voice  of  clarion,  challenging  to  contest  for  the  high  prize  of  earth — 
such  as  that  in  which  the  leader  of  Israel  in  its  first  days  holds  up 
to  the  new  nation  the  land  of  promise ;  s-uch  as  that  which  in 
well  imagined  speeches  scattered  by  Livy,  over  the  history  of  the  "ma 
jestic  series  of  victories,"  speaks  the  Roman  consciousness  of  growing 
aggrandizement  which  should  subject  the  world;  such  as  that,  through 
which,  at  the  tribunes  of  her  revolution,  in  the  bulletins  of  her  rising 
soldier,  France  told  to  the  world  her  dream  of  glory.  And  of  this 
kind,  somewhat,  is  ours;  cheerful,  hopeful,  trusting,  as  befits  youth 
and  spring;  the  eloquence  of  a  state  beginning  to  ascend  to  the  first 
class  of  power,  eminence  and  consideration,  and  conscious  of  itself. 
It  is  to  no  purpose  that  they  tell  you  it  is  in  bad  taste;  that  it  partakes 
of  arrogance,  and  vanity;  that  a  true  national  good  breeding  would 
not  know  or  seem  to  know,  whether  the  nation  is  old  or  young; 
whether  the  tides  of  being  are  in  their  flow  or  ebb;  whether  these 


436  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

courses  of  the  sun  are  sinking  slowly  to  rest,  wearied  with  a  journey 
of  a  thousand  years,  or  just  bounding  from  the  Orient  unbreathed, 
Higher  laws  than  those  of  taste  determine  the  consciousness  of  na 
tions.  Higher  laws  than  those  of  taste  determine  the  general  forms  of 
the  expression  of  that  consciousness.  Let  the  downward  age  of 
America  find  its  orators,  and  poets,  and  artists.,  to  erect  its  spirit;  or 
grace  and  sooth  its  dying;  be  it  ours  logo  up  with  Webster  to  the  rock, 
the  monument,  the  Capitol,  and  bid  "  the  distant  generations  hail!" 

In  this  connection  remark,  somewhat  more  generally,  to  how  extra 
ordinary  an  extent  he  had,  by  his  acts,  words,  thoughts,  or  the  events  of 
his  life,  associated  himself  forever,  in  the  memory  of  all  of  us,  with 
every  historical  incident,  or  at  least  with  every  historical  epoch;  with 
every  policy,  with  every  glory,  with  every  great  name  and  fundamental 
institution,  and  grand  or  beautiful  image,  which  are  peculiarly  and 
properly  American.  Look  backward  to  the  planting  of  Plymouth,  and 
Jamestown;  to  the  various  scenes  of  colonial  life  in  peace  and  war;  to 
the  opening  and  march,  and  close  of  the  revolutionary  drama — to  the 
age  of  the  Constitution,  to  Washington  and  Franklin  and  Adams  and 
Jefferson;  to  the  whole  train  of  causes  from  the  Reformation  down 
wards,  which  prepared  us  to  be  Republicans;  to  that  other  train  of 
causes  which  led  us  to  be  Unionists, — look  around  on  the  field,  work 
shop,  and  deck,  and  hear  the  music  of  labor  rewarded,  fed  and  pro 
tected — look  on  the  bright  sisterhood  of  the  states,  each  singing  as  a 
seraph  in  her  mot'.on,  yet  blending  in  a  common  beam  and  swelling  a 
common  harmony — and  there  is  nothing  which  does  not  bring  him  by 
some  tie  to  the  memory  of  America. 

We  seem  to  see  his  form  and  hear  his  deep  grave  speech  every 
where.  By  some  felicity  of  his  personal  life;  by  some  wise,  deep,  or 
beautiful  word  spoken  or  written;  by  some  service  of  his  own,  or  some 
commemoration  of  the  services  of  others,  it  has  come  to  pass  that 
"  our  granite  hills,  our  inland  seas  and  prairies,  and  fresh,  unbounded, 
magnificent  wilderness;"  our  encircling  ocean,  the  resting-place  of  the 
pilgrims,  our  new  born  sister  of  the  Pacific;  our  popular  assemblies, 
our  free  schools,  all  our  cherished  doctrines  of  education,  and  of  the 
influence  of  religion,  a  material  policy  and  law,  and  the  Constitution, 
give  us  back  his  name.  What  American  landscape  will  you  look  on — 
what  subject  of  American  interest  will  you  study — what  source  of  hope 
or  of  anxiety,  as  an  American,  will  you  acknowledge  that  it  does  not 
recall  him  ? 

I  have  reserved,  until  I  could  treat  it  as  a  separate  and  final  topic, 
the  consideration  of  the  morality  of  Mr.  Webster's  public  character 
and  life.  To  his  true  fame,  to  the  kind  and  degree  of  influence  which 
that  large  series  of  great  actions,  and  those  embodied  thoughts  of  great 
intellect  are  to  exert  on  the  future — this  is  the  all-important  consid 
eration.  In  the  last  speech  which  he  made  in  the  Senate — the  last  of 
those  which  he  made,  as  he  said,  for  the  Constitution  and  the  Union, 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  437 

and  which  he  might  have  commended,  as  Bacon  his  name  and  memory, 
"to  men's  charitable  speeches,  to  foreign  nations,  and  the  next  ages," 
yet  with  a  better  hope  he  asserted — "  the  ends  I  aim  at  shall  be  those 
of  my  country,  my  God  and  truth."  Is  that  his  praise  ? 

Until  the  seventh  day  of  March,  1850,  I  think  it  would  have  been 
accorded  to  him  by  an  almost  universal  acclaim,  as  general,  and  as 
expressive  of  profound  and  indulgent  conviction,  and  of  enthusiasm, 
love,  and  trust,  as  ever  saluted  conspicuous  statesmanship,  tried  by 
many  crises  of  affairs  in  a  great  nation,  agitated  ever  by  parties,  and 
wholly  free. 

That  he  had  admitted  into  his  heart  a  desire  to  win,  by  deserving 
them,  the  highest  forms  of  public  honor,  many  would  have  said;  and 
they  who  loved  him  most  fondly,  and  felt  the  truest  solicitude  that  he 
should  carry  a  good  conscience  and  pure  fame  brightening  to  the  end, 
would  not  have  feared  to  concede.  For  he  was  not  ignorant  of  him 
self,  and  he  therefore  knew  that  there  was  nothing  within  the  Union, 
Constitution  and  law,  too  high,  or  too  large,  or  too  difficult  for  him. 
He  believed  that  his  natural  or  his  acquired  abilities,  and  his  policy 
of  administration,  would  contribute  to  the  true  glory  of  America;  and 
he  held  no  theory  of  ethics  which  required  him  to  disparage,  to  sup 
press,  to  ignore  vast  capacities  of  public  service  merely  because  they 
were  his  own.  If  the  fleets  of  Greece  were  assembling,  and  her  tribes 
buckling  on  their  arms  from  Laconia  to  Mount  Olympus,  from  the 
promontory  of  Sunium  to  the  isle  farthest  to  the  west,  and  the 
great  epic  action  was  opening,  it  was  not  for  him  to  feign  insanity 
or  idiocy,  to  escape  the  perils  and  the  honor  of  command.  But  that 
all  this  in  him  had  been  ever  in  subordination  to  a  principled  and 
beautiful  public  virtue;  that  every  sectional  bias,  every  party  tie,  as 
well  as  every  personal  aspiring,  had  been  uniformly  held  by  him  for 
nothing  against  the  claims  of  country,  that  nothing  lower  than  coun 
try  seemed  worthy  enough — nothing  smaller  than  country  large  enough 
— for  that  great  heart,  would  not  have  been  questioned  by  a  whisper. 
Ah!  if  at  any  hour  before  that  day  he  had  died,  how  would  then  the 
great  procession  of  the  people  of  America — the  great  triumphal  pro 
cession  of  the  dead — have  moved  onward  to  his  grave — the  sublimity 
of  national  sorrow,  not  contrasted,  not  outraged  by  one  feeble  voice 
of  calumny! 

In  that  antecedent  public  life,  embracing  from  1812  to  1850 — a 
period  of  thirty-eight  years — I  find  grandest  proofs  of  the  genuineness 
and  comprehensiveness  of  his  patriotism,  and  the  boldness  and  man 
liness  of  his  public  virtue.  He  began  his  career  of  politics  as  a  fed 
eralist.  Such  was  his  father — so  beloved  and  revered  ;  such  his 
literary  and  professional  companions  ;  such,  although  by  no  very 
decisive  or  certain  preponderance,  the  community  in  which  he  was 
bred  and  was  to  live.  Under  that  name  of  party  he  entered  Congress, 
personally,  and  by  connection,  opposed  to  the  war,  which  was  thought 


438  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

to  bear  with  such  extreme  sectional  severity  upon  the  North  and  the 
East.  And  yet,  one  might  almost  say,  that  the  only  thing  he  imbibed 
from  federalists  or  federalism  was  love  and  admiration  for  the  Con 
stitution  as  the  means  of  union.  That  passion  he  did  inherit  from 
them;  that  he  cherished. 

He  came  into  Congress,  opposed,  as  I  have  said,  to  the  war  ;  and 
behold  him,  if  you  would  judge  of  the  quality  of  his  political  ethics,  in 
opposition.  Did-  those  eloquent  lips,  at  a  time  of  life  when  vehem 
ence  and  imprudence  are  expected,  if  ever,  and  not  ungraceful,  let  fall 
ever  one  word  of  faction  ?  Did  he  ever  deny  one  power  to  the  gen 
eral  government,  which  the  soundest  expositors  of  all  creeds  have 
allowed  it  ?  Did  he  ever  breathe  a  syllable  which  could  excite  a 
region,  a  state,  a  family  of  states,  against  the  Union — which  could 
hold  out  hope  or  aid  to  the  enemy  ? — which  sought  or  tended  to  turn 
back  or  to  chill  the  fiery  tide  of  a  new  and  intense  nationality,  then 
bursting  up,  to  flow  and  burn  till  all  things  appointed  to  America  to 
do  shall  be  fulfilled  ?  These  questions  in  their  substance,  he  put  to 
Mr.  Calhoun,  in  1838,  in  the  Senate,  and  that  great  man — one  of  the 
authors  of  the  war — just  then,  only  then,  in  relations  unfriendly  to 
Mr.  Webster,  and  who  had  just  insinuated  a  reproach  on  his  conduct 
in  the  war,  was  silent.  Did  Mr.  Webster  content  himself  even  with 
objecting  to  the  details  of  the  mode  in  which  the  administration  waged 
war?  No,  indeed.  Taught  by  his  constitutional  studies  that  the 
Union  was  made  in  part  for  commerce,  familiar  with  the  habits  of  our 
long  line  of  coast,  knowing  well  how  many  sailors  and  fishermen, 
driven  from  every  sea  by  embargo  and  war,  burned  to  go  to  the  gun- 
deck  and  avenge  the  long  wrongs  of  England  on  the  element  where 
she  had  inflicted  them,  his  opposition  to  the  war  manifested  itself  by 
teaching  the  nation  that  the  deck  was  her  field  of  fame.  Non  illl  im- 
pct'iuni  pclagi  scevtinique  tridentuui  sed  nobis,  sorte  datum, 

But  I  might  recall  other  evidence  of  the  sterling  .and  unusual  quali 
ties  of  his  public  virtue.  Look  in  how  manly  a  sort  he,  not  merely 
conducted  a  particular  argument  or  a  particular  speech,  but  in  how 
manly  a  sort,  in  how  high  a  moral  tone,  he  uniformly  dealt  with  the 
mind  of  his  country.  Politicians  got  an  advantage  of  him  for  this 
while  he  lived;  let  the  dead  have  just  praise  to-day.  Our  public  life 
is  one  long  electioneering,  and  even  Burke  tells  you  that  at  popular 
elections  the  most  rigorous  casuists  will  remit  something  of  their 
severity.  But  where  do  you  find  him  flattering  his  countrymen,  in 
directly  or  directly,  for  a  vote  !  On  what  did  he  ever  place  himself  but 
good  counsels  and  useful  service  ?  His  arts  were  manly  arts,  and  he 
never  saw  a  day  of  temptation  when  he  would  not  rather  fail  than 
stand  on  any  other.  Who  ever  heard  that  voice  cheering  the  people 
on  to  rapacity,  to  injustice,  to  a  vain  and  guilty  glory  ?  Who  ever 
saw  that  pencil  of  light  hold  up  a  picture  of  manifest  destiny  to  dazzle 
the  fancy  ?  How  anxiously  rather,  in  season  and  out,  bvthe  energetic 


RUFUS  CIIO ATE.  439 

eloquence  of  his  youth,  by  his  counsels  bequeathed  on  the  verge  of  a 
timely  grave,  he  preferred  to  teach  that  by  all  possible  acquired  sobri 
ety  of  mind,  by  asking  reverently  of  the  past,  by  obedience  to  the  law, 
by  habits  of  patient  and  legitimate  labor,  by  the  cultivation  of  the 
mind,  by  the  fear  and  worship  of  God,  we  educate  ourselves  for  the 
future  that  is  revealing.  Men  said  he  did  not  sympathize  with  the 
masses,  because  his  phraseology  was  rather  of  an  old  and  simple 
school,  rejecting  the  nauseous  and  vain  repetitions  of  humanity  and 
philanthropy,  and  progress  and  brotherhood,  in  which  may  lurk 
heresies  so  dreadful,  of  socialism  or  disunion;  in  which  a  selfish,  hol 
low,  and  shallow  ambition  may  mask  itself — the  syren  song  which 
would  lure  the  pilot  from  his  course.  But  I  say  that  he  did  sympathize 
with  them;  and,  because  he  did,  he  came  to  them  not  with  adulation, 
but  with  truth;  not  with  words  to  please,  but  with  measures  to  serve 
them;  not  that  his  popular  sympathies  were  less,  but  that  his  personal 
and  intellectual  dignity  and  his  public  morality  were  greater. 

And  on  the  seventh  of  March,  and  down  to  the  final  scene,  might  he 
not  still  say  as  ever  before,  that  "all  the  ends  he  aimed  at  were  his 
country,  his  God's,  and  truth's."  He  declared,  "  I  speak  to-day  for 
the  preservation  of  the  Union.  Here  me  for  my  cause.  I  speak  to 
day  out  of  a  solicitous  and  anxious  heart  for  the  restoration  to  the 
country  of  that  quiet  and  harmony,  which  make  the  blessings  of  this 
Union  so  rich  and  so  dear  to  us  all.  These  are  the  motives,  and  the 
sole  motives,  that  influence  me."  If  in  that  declaration  he  was  sin 
cere,  was  he  not  bound  in  conscience  to  give  the  counsels  of  that  day? 
What  were  they  ?  What  was  the  single  one  for  which  his  political 
morality  was  called  in  question  ?  Only  that  a  provision  of  the  Federal 
Constitution,  ordaining  the  restitution  of  fugitive  slaves,  should  be  ex 
ecuted  according  to  its  true  meaning.  This  only.  And  might  he  not 
in  good  conscience  keep  the  Constitution  in  this  part,  and  in  all,  for 
the  preservation  of  the  Union  ? 

Under  his  oath  to  support  it,  and  to  support  it  all,  and  with  his 
opinions  of  that  duty  so  long  held,  proclaimed  uniformly,  in  whose  vin 
dication  on  some  great  days  he  had  found  the  chief  opportunity  of  his 
personal  glory,  might  he  not,  in  good  conscience  support  it,  and  all  of 
it,  even  if  he  could  not — and  no  human  intelligence  could,  certainly — 
know  that  the  extreme  evil  would  follow,  in  immediate  consequence, 
its  violation  ?  Was  it  so  recent  a  doctrine  of  his  that  the  Constitution 
was  obligatory  upon  the  national  and  individual  conscience,  that  you 
should  ascribe  it  to  sudden  and  irresistible  temptation  ?  Why,  what 
had  he,  quite  down  to  the  seventh  of  March,  that  more  truly  individ 
ualized  him — what  had  he  more  characteristically  his  own — where 
withal  had  he  to  glory  more  or  other  than  all  beside,  than  this  very 
doctrine  of  the  sacred  and  permanent  obligation  to  support  each  and 
ail  parts  of  that  great  compact  of  union  and  justice?  Had  not  this 
been  his  distinction,  his  specialty — almost  the  foible  of  his  greatness — 
A.  P.-15. 


44°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

'  v~— 

the  darling  and  master  passion  ever  ?  Consider  that  that  was  a  senti 
ment  which  had  been  part  of  his  conscious  nature  for  more  than  sixty 
years  ;  that  from  the  time  he  bought  his  first  copy  of  the  Constitution 
on  the  handkerchief,  and  revered  parental  lips  had  commended  it  to 
him,  with  all  other  holy  and  beautiful  things,  along  with  lessons  of 
reverence  to  God,  and  the  belief  and  love  of  His  Scriptures,  along  with 
the  doctrine  of  the  catechism,  the  unequalled  music  of  Watts,  the  name 
of  Washington — there  had  never  been  an  hour  that  he  had  not  held  it 
the  master  work  of  man — just  in  its  ethics,  consummate  in  its  practi 
cal  wisdom,  paramount  in  its  injunctions  ;  that  every  year  of  life  had 
deepened  the  original  impression  ;  that  as  his  mind  opened,  and  his 
associations  widened,  he  found  that  every  one  for  whom  he  felt  re 
spect,  instructors,  theological  and  moral  teachers,  his  entire  party  con 
nection,  the  opposite  party,  and  the  whole  country,  so  held  it  too;  that 
its  fruits  of  more  than  half  a  century  of  union,  of  happiness,  of  re 
nown,  bore  constant  and  clear  witness  to  it  in  his  mind,  and  that  it 
chanced  that  certain  emergent  and  rare  actions  had  devolved  on  him 
to  stand  forth  to  maintain  it,  to  vindicate  its  interpretation,  to  vindi 
cate  its  authority,  to  unfold  its  workings  and  uses  ;  that  he  had  so  ac 
quitted  himself  of  that  opportunity  as  to  have  won  the  title  of  its  ex 
pounder  and  defender,  so  that  his  proudest  memories,  his  most  prized 
renown,  referred  to  it,  and  were  entwined  with  it — and  say  whether 
with  such  antecedents,  readiness  to  execute,  or  disposition  to  evade, 
would  have  been  the  hardest  to  explain,  likeliest  to  suggest  the  sur 
mise  of  a  new  temptation  !  He  who  knows  anything  of  the  man,  knows 
that  his  vote  for  beginning  the  restoration  of  harmony  by  keeping  the 
whole  Constitution,  was  determined,  was  necessitated  by  the  great 
law  of  sequences — a  great  law  of  cause  and  effect,  running  back  to  his 
mother's  arms,  as  resistless  as  the  law  which  moves  the  system  about 
the  sun — and  that  he  must  have  given  it,  although  it  had  been  opened 
to  him  in  vision  that  within  the  next  natural  day  his  "eyes  should  be 
turned  to  behold  for  the  last  time  the  sun  in  Heaven." 

To  accuse  him  in  that  act  of  "  sinning  against  his  own  conscience," 
is  to  charge  one  of  these  things:  either  that  no  well  instructed  con 
science  can  approve  and  maintain  the  Constitution  and  each  of  its 
parts;  and  therefore  thac  his,  by  inference,  did  not  approve  it;  or  that 
he  had  never  employed  the  proper  means  of  instructing  his  conscience; 
and  therefore  its  approval,  if  it  were  given,  was  itself  an  immorality. 
The  accuser  must  assert  one  of  these  propositions.  He  will  not  deny, 
[  take  it  for  granted,  that  the  conscience  requires  to  be  instructed  by 
political  teaching  in  order  to  guide  the  citizen  or  the  public  man  aright 
in  the  matter  of  political  duties.  Will  he  say  that  the  moral  senti 
ments  alone,  whatever  their  origin ;  whether  factitious  and  derivative, 
or  parcel  of  the  spirit  of  the  child  and  born  with  it;  that  they  alone,  by 
force  of  strict  and  mere  ethical  training,  become  qualified  to  pronounce 
authoritatively  whether  the  Constitution,  or  any  other  vast  and  com- 


RUFUS   CIIO ATE.  441 

plex  civil  policy,  as  a  whole,  whereby  a  nation  is  created  and  pre 
served,  ought  to  have  been  made,  or  ought  to  be  executed?  Will  he 
venture  to  tell  you  that  if  your  conscience  approves  the  Union,  the 
Constitution  in  all  its  parts,  and  the  law  which  administers  it,  that 
you  are  bound  to  obey  and  uphold  them;  and  if  it  disapproves,  you 
must,  according  to  your  measure,  and  in  your  circles  of  agitation,  dis 
obey  and  subvert  them,  and  leave  the  matter  there — forgetting  or  de 
signedly  omitting  to  tell  you  also  that  you  are  bound  in  all  good  faith 
and  diligence  to  resort  to  studies  and  to  teachers  ab  extra — in  order  to 
determine  whether  the  conscience  ought  to  approve  or  disapprove  the 
Union,  the  Constitution  and  the  law,  in  view  of  the  whole  aggregate  of 
their  nature  and  fruits  ?  Does  he  not  perfectly  know  that  this  moral  fac 
ulty,  however  trained  by  mere  moral  instruction,  specifically  directed 
to  that  end,  to  be  tender,  sensitive,  and  peremptory,  is  totally  unequal 
to  decide  on  any  action,  or  anything,  but  the  very  simplest;  that  which 
produces  the  most  palpable  and  immediate  result  of  unmixed  good,  or 
unmixed  evil;  and  that  when  it  comes  to  judge  on  the  great  mixed 
cases  of  the  world,  where  the  consequences  are  numerous,  their  devel 
opments  slow  and  successive,  the  light  and  shadow  of  a  blended  and 
multiform  good  and  evil  spread  out  on  the  lifetime  of  a  nation,  that 
then  morality  must  borrow  from  history;  from  politics;  from  reason 
operating  on  history  and  politics,  her  elements  of  determination.  I 
think  he  must  agree  to  this.  He  must  agree,  I  think,  that  to  single 
out  one  provision  in  a  political  system  of  many  parts  and  of  elaborate 
interdependence,  to  take  it  all  alone,  exactly  as  it  stands,  and  without 
attention  to  its  origin  and  history;  the  necessities,  morally  resistless, 
which  prescribe  its  introduction  into  the  system,  the  unmeasured  good 
in  other  forms  which  its  allowance  buys,  the  unmeasured  evil  in  other 
forms  which  its  allowance  hinders — without  attention  to  these,  to  pre 
sent  it  in  all  "the  nakedness  of  a  metaphysical  abstraction  to  the  mere 
sensibilities;"  and  ask  if  it  is  not  inhuman,  and  if  they  answer  accord 
ing  to  their  kind  that  it  is,  then  to  say  that  the  problem  is  solved,  and 
the  right  of  disobedience  is  made  clear — he  must  agree  that  this  is  not 
to  exalt  reason  and  conscience,  but  to  outrage  both.  He  must  agree  that 
although  the  supremacy  of  conscience  is  absolute  whether  the  decision 
be  right  or  wrong,  that  is,  according  to  the  real  qualities  of  things  or 
not,  that  there  lies  back  of  the  actual  conscience  and  its  actual  decisions, 
the  great  anterior  duty  of  having  a  conscience  that  shall  decide  accord 
ing  to  the  real  qualities  of  things,  that  to  this  vast  attainment  some  ade 
quate  knowledge  of  the  real  qualities  of  things  which  are  to  be  subjected 
to  its  inspection  is  indispensable;  that  if  the  matter  to  be  judged  of  is  any 
thing  so  large,  complex,  aud  conventional  as  the  duty  of  the  citizen,  or 
the  public  man  to  the  state;  the  duty  of  preserving  or  destroying  the  or 
der  of  things  in  which  we  are  born;  the  duty  of  executing  or  violating 
one  of  the  provisions  of  organic  law  which  the  country,  having  a  wide 
and  clear  view  of  before  and  after,  had  deemed  a  needful  instrumental 


44 2  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

means  for  the  preservation  of  that  order;  that  then  it  is  not  enough  to 
relegate  the  citizen,  or  the  public  man,  to  a  higher  law,  and  an  in 
terior  illumination,  and  leave  him  there.  Such  discourse  is  "as  the 
stars,  which  give  so  little  light  because  they  are  so  high."  He  must 
agree  that  in  such  case,  morality  itself  should  go  to  school.  There 
must  be  science  as  well  as  conscience,  an  old  Fuller  has  said.  She 
must  herself  learn  of  history;  she  must  learn  of  politics;  she  must 
consult  the  builders  of  the  state,  the  living  and  the  dead,  to  know  its 
value,  its  aspects  in  the  long  run,  on  happiness  and  morals;  its  dan 
gers;  the  means  of  the  preservation;  the  maxims  and  arts  imperial  of 
its  glory.  To  fit  her  to  be  the  mistress  of  civil  life,  he  will  agree,  that 
she  must  come  out  for  a  space  from  the  interior  round  of  emotions, 
and  subjective  states  and  contemplations,  and  introspection,  clois 
tered,  unexercised,  unbreathed — and,  carrying  with  her  nothing  but 
her  tenderness,  her  scrupulosity,  and  her  love  of  truth,  survey  the  ob 
jective  realities  of  the  state;  ponder  thoughtfully  on  the  complications 
and  impediments,  and  antagonisms  which  make  the  noblest  politics 
but  an  aspiring,  an  approximation,  a  compromise,  a  type,  a  shadow  of 
good  to  come,  "  the  buying  of  great  blessings  at  great  prices" — and 
there  learn  civil  duty  seciindum  subjectatn  mateiiam.  "Add  to  your 
virtue  knowledge" — or  it  is  no  virtue. 

And  now,  is  he  who  accuses  Mr.  Webster  of  "sinning  against  his 
own  conscience,"  quite  sure  that  he  knows  that  that  conscience — well 
instructed  by  profoundest  political  studies,  and  thoughts  of  the  reason; 
well  instructed  by  an  appropriate  moral  institution  sedulously  applied, 
did  not  commend  and  approve  his  conduct  to  himself  ?  Does  he  know, 
that  he  had  not  anxiously,  and  maturely,  studied  the  ethics  of  the 
Constitution;  and  as  a  question  of  ethics,  but  of  ethics  applied  to  a 
stupendous  problem  of  practical  life,  and  had  not  become  satisfied  that 
they  were  right  ?  Does  he  know  that  he  had  not  done  this,  when  his 
faculties  were  all  at  their  best;  and. his  motives  under  no  suspicion? 
May  not  such  an  inquirer,  for  aught  you  can  know;  may  not  that 
great  mind  have  verily  and  conscientiously  thought  that  he  had  learned 
in  that  investigation  many  things?  May  he  not  have  thought  that  he 
learned  that  the  duty  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  free  states,  in  that 
day's  extremity,  to  the  republic,  the  duty  at  all  events  of  statesmen,  to 
the  republic,  is  a  little  too  large,  and  delicate,  and  difficult,  to  be  all 
comprehended  in  the  single  emotion  of  compassion  for  one  class  of 
persons  in  the  commonwealth,  or  in  carrying  out  the  single  principle 
of  abstract,  and  natural,  and  violent  justice  to  one  class?  May  he  not 
have  thought  that  he  found  there  some  stupendous  exemplifications  of 
what  we  read  of  in  books  of  casuistry,  the  "dialectics  of  conscience," 
as  conflicts  of  duties;  such  things  es  the  conflicts  of  the  greater  with 
the  less;  conflicts  of  the  attainable  with  the  visionary;  conflicts  of  the 
real  with  the  seeming;  and  may  he  not  have  been  soothed  to  learn 
that  the  evil  which  he  found  in  this  part  of  the  Constitution  was  the 


gurus  en o ATI':.  443 

least  of  two;  was  unavoidable;  was  compensated;  was  justified;  was 
commanded,  as  by  a  voice  from  the  mount,  by  a  more  exceeding  and 
enduring  good  ?  May  he  not  have  thought  that  he  had  learned  that 
the  grandest,  most  difficult,  most  pleasing  to  God  of  the  achievements 
of  secular  wisdom  and  philanthropy,  is  the  building  of  a  state;  that 
of  the  first  class  of  grandeur  and  difficulty,  and  acceptableness  to  Him, 
in  this  kind,  was  the  building  of  our  own;  that  unless  everybody  of 
consequence  enough  to  be  heard  of  in  the  age  and  generation  of 
Washington — unless  that  whole  age  and  generation  were  in  a  con 
spiracy  to  cheat  themselves,  and  history,  and  posterity,  a  certain 
policy  of  concession  and  forbearance  of  region  to  region,  was  indis 
pensable  to  rear  that  master  work  of  man;  and  that  that  same  policy 
of  concession  and  forbearance  is  as  indispensable,  more  so,  now,  to 
afford  a  rational  ground  of  hope  for  its  preservation  ?  May  he  not 
have  thought  that  he  had  learned  that  the  obligation,  if  such  in  any 
sense  you  may  call  it,  of  one  state  to  allow  itself  to  become  an  asy 
lum  for  those  flying  from  slavery  into  another  state,  was  an  obli 
gation  of  benevolence,  of  humanity  only,  not  of  justice  ;  that  it 
must,  therefore,  on  ethical  principles,  be  exercised  under  all  the  limi 
tations  which  regulate  and  condition  the  benevolence  of  states;  that, 
therefore,  each  is  to  exercise  it  in  strict  subordination  to  its  own  in 
terests,  estimated  by  a  wise  statesmanship,  and  a  well  instructed  pub 
lic  conscience;  that  benevolence  itself,  even  its  ministrations  of  mere 
good  will,  is  an  affair  of  measure  and  of  proportions;  and  must  choose 
sometimes  between  the  greater  good,  and  the  less;  that  if,  to  the 
highest  degree,  and  widest  diffusion  of  human  happiness,  union  of 
states  such  as  ours,  some  free,  some  not  so,  was  necessary;  and  to 
such  union  the  Constitution  was  necessary;  and  to  such  a  Constitu 
tion  this  clause  was  necessary,  humanity  itself  prescribes  it,  and  pre 
sides  in  it?  May  he  not  have  thought  that  he  learned  that  there  are 
proposed  to  humanity  in  this  world  many  fields  of  beneficent  exertion; 
some  larger,  some  smaller,  some  more,  some  less  expensive  and 
profitable  to  till;  that  among  these  it  is  always  lawful,  and  often  indis 
pensable  to  make  a  choice;  that  sometimes,  to  acquire  the  right,  or 
the  ability  to  laoor  in  one,  it  is  needful  to  covenant  not  to  invade 
another;  and  that  such  covenant,  in  partial  restraint,  rather  in  rea 
sonable  direction  of  philanthropy,  is  good  in  the  forum  of  conscience  ? 
And  setting  out  with  these  very  elementary  maxims  of  practical  morals, 
may  he  not  have  thought  that  he  learned  fram  the  careful  study  of  the 
facts  of  our  history  and  opinions,  that  to  acquire  the  power  of  advan 
cing  the  dearest  interests  of  man,  through  generations  countless,  by 
that  unequal  security  of  peace  and  progress,  the  Union;  the  power  of 
advancing  the  interest  of  each  state,  each  region,  each  relation — the 
slave  and  the  master;  the  power  subjecting  the  whole  continent  all 
astir,  and  on  fire  with  the  emulation  of  young  republics;  of  subjecting 
it,  through  ages  of  household  calm,  to  the  sweet  influences  of  Christi- 


444  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

anity,  of  culture,  of  the  great,  gentle,  and  sure  reformer,  time;  that  to 
enable  us  to  do  this,  to  enable  us  to  grasp  this  boundless  and  ever- 
renewing  harvest  of  philanthropy,  it  would  have  been  a  good  bar 
gain — that  humanity  itself  would  have  approved  it — to  have  bound 
ourselves  never  so  much  as  to  look  across  the  line  into  the  inclosure  of 
Southern  municipal  slavery;  certainly  never  to  enter  it;  still  less,  still 
less  to 

"  Pluck  its  berries  harsh  and  crude 
And  with  forced  fingers  rude 
Shatter  its  leaves  before  the  mellowing  year." 

Until  the  accuser  who  charges  him,  now  that  he  is  in  his  grave, with 
"  having  sinned  against  his  conscience,"  will  assert  that  the  conscience 
of  a  public  man  may  not,  must  not,  be  instructed  by  profound  knowl 
edge  of  the  vast  subject-matter  with  which  public  life  is  conversant — 
even  as  the  conscience  of  the  mariner  may  be  and  must  be  instructed 
by  the  knowledge  of  navigation;  and  that  of  the  pilot  by  the  knowl 
edge  of  the  depths  and  shallows  of  the  coast;  and  that  of  the  engi 
neer  of  the  boat  and  the  train,  by  the  knowledge  of  the  capacities  of 
his  mechanism,  to  achieve  a  proposed  velocity;  and  will  assert  that 
he  is  certain  that  the  consummate  science  of  our  great  statesman  was 
felt  by  himself  to  prescribe  to  his  morality  another  conduct  than  that 
which  he  adopted,  and  that  he  thus  consciously  outraged  that  "sense 
of  duty  which  pursues  us  ever" — is  he  not  inexcusable,  whoever  he  is, 
that  so  judges  another  ? 

But  it  is  time  that  this  eulogy  was  spoken.  My  heart  goes  back  into 
the  coffin  there  with  him,  and  I  would  pause.  I  went — it  is  a  day  or 
two  since — alone,  to  see  again  the  home  which  he  so  dearly  loved, 
the  chamber  where  he  died,  the  grave  in  which  they  laid  him — all 
habited  as  when 

"  His  look  drew  audience  still  as  night, 
Or  summer's  noontide  air," 

till  the  heavens  be  no  more.  Throughout  that  spacious  and  calm 
scene  all  things  to  the  eye  showed  at  first  unchanged.  The  books  in 
the  library,  the  portraits,  the  table  at  which  he  wrote,  the  scientific 
culture  of  the  land,  the  course  of  agricultural  occupation,  the  coming 
in  of  the  harvest,  fruit  of  the  seed  his  own  hand  had  scattered;  the 
animals  and  implements  of  husbandry,  the  trees  planted  by  him  in 
lines,  in  copses,  in  orchards,  by  thousands;  the  seat  under  the  noble 
elm  on  which  he  used  to  sit  to  feel  the  southwest  wind  at  evening,  or 
hear  the  breathings  of  the  sea,  or  the  not  less  audible  music  of  the 
starry  heavens,  all  seemed  at  first  unchanged.  The  sun  of  a  bright 
day,  from  which,  however,  something  of  the  fervors  of  midsummer 
were  wanting,  fell  temperately  on  them  all,  filled  the  air  on  all  sides 
with  the  utterances  of  life,  and  gleamed  on  the  long  line  of  ocean. 
Some  of  those  whom  on  earth  he  loved  best,  still  were  there.  The 


RUFUS   CHO ATE.  445 

great  mind  still  seemed  to  preside;  the  great  presence  to  be  with  you; 
you  might  expect  to  hear  again  the  rich  and  playful  tones  of  the  voice 
of  the  old  hospitality.  Yet  a  moment  more,  and  all  the  scene  took  on 
the  aspect  of  one  great  monument,  inscribed  with  his  name,  and  sa 
cred  to  his  memory.  And  such  it  shall  be  in  all  the  future  of  America! 
The  sensation  of  desolateness,  and  loneliness,  and  darkness,  with 
which  you  see  it  now,  will  pass  away;  the  sharp  grief  of  love  and 
friendship  will  become  soothed;  men  will  repair  thither  as  they  are 
wont  to  commemorate  the  great  days  of  history;  the  same  glance  shall 
take  in,  and  the  same  emotions  shall  greet  and  bless  the  Harbor  of  the 
Pilgrims  and  the  Tomb  of  Webster. 


PERIOD  THIRD. 


PRE  S  E  R  VAT  I  ON. 


BATTLE-HYMN  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

Mine  eves  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord  : 
He  is  trampling  out  the  vintage  "where  the  grapes  of  wrath  are  stored ; 
He  hath  loosed  the  fateful  lightning  of  his  terrible  swift  sword : 
His  truth  is  inarching  on, 

I  have  seen  him  in  the  watch-fires  of  a  hundred  circling  camps: 
They  have  builded  him  an  altar  in  the  evening  dews  and  damps  ; 
I  can  read  his  righteous  sentence  by  the  dim  and  flaring  lamps. 
His  day  is  marching  on. 

I  have  read  a  fiery  gospel,  writ  in  burnished  rows  of  steel : 
"As  ye  deal  with  my  contemners,  so  with  you  my  grace  shall  deal : 
Let  the  Hero,  born  of  woman,  crush  the  serpent  with  his  heel, 
Since  God  is  marching  on." 

He  has  sounded  forth  the  trumpet  that  shalt  never  call  retreat; 
He  is  sifting  out  the  hearts  of  men  before  his  judgment-seat : 
Oh  !  be  swift,  my  soul,  to  answer  him  !  be  jubilant,  my  feet  t 
Our  God  is  marching  on. 

In  the  beauty  of  the  lilies  Christ  was  born  across  the  sea, 

With  a  glory  in  his  bosom  that  transfigures  you  and  me: 

A*  he  died  to  make  men  holy,  let  us  die  to  make  men  free. 

While  God  is  marching  on, 

JULIA  WARD  HOWE. 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING.  449 


THE  DUTY  OF   THE  FREE  STATES. 
WILLIAM   ELLERY   CHANNING. 

Boston,  March  26,  1842. 

I  respectfully  ask  your  attention,  fellow-citizens  of  the  free  states, 
to  a  subject  of  great  and  pressing  importance. 

The  case  of  the  Creole,  taken  by  itself,  or  separated  from  the  prin 
ciples  which  are  complicated  with  it,  however  it  might  engage 
my  feelings,  would  not  have  moved  me  to  the  present  address. 

I  am  not  writing  to  plead  the  cause  of  a  hundred  or  more  men  scat 
tered  through  the  West  Indies,  and  claimed  as  slaves.  In  a  world 
abounding  with  so  much  wrong  and  woe,  we  at  this  distance  can 
spend  but  a  few  thoughts  on  these  strangers.  I  rejoice  that  they  are 
free;  I  trust  that  they  will  remain  so;  and  with  these  feelings  I  dis 
miss  them  from  my  thoughts.  The  case  of  the  Creole  involves  great 
and  vital  principles,  and  as  such  I  now  invite  to  it  your  serious  con 
sideration. 

The  case  is  thus  stated  in  the  letter  of  the  American  Secretary  of 
State  to  the  American  Minister  in  London: 

"It  appears  that  the  brig  Creole,  of  Richmond,  Va.,  Ensor,  master, 
bound  to  New  Orleans,  sailed  from  Hampton  Ro^ids  with  a  cargo  of 
merchandise,  principally  tobacco,  and  slaves,  about  one  hundred  and 
thirty-five  in  number;  that,  on  the  evening  of  the  yth  of  November, 
some  of  the  slaves  rose  upon  the  crew  of  the  vessel,  murdered  a  pas 
senger  named  Hewell,  who  owned  some  of  the  negroes,  wounded  the 
captain  dangerously,  and  the  first  mate  and  two  of  the  crew  severely, 
that  the  slaves  soon  obtained  complete  possession  of  the  brig,  which, 
under  their  direction,  was  taken  into  the  port  of  Nassau,  in  the  island 
of  New  Providence,  where  she  arrived  on  the  morning  of  the  gth  of 
the  same  month;  that,  at  the  request  of  the  American  consul  in  that 
place,  the  governor  ordered  a  guard  on  board,  to  prevent  the  escape 
of  the  mutineers,  and  with  a  view  to  an  investigation  of  the  circum 
stances  of  the  case;  that  such  investigation  was  accordingly  made  by 
two  British  magistrates,  and  that  an  examination  also  took  place  by 
the  consul;  that,  on  the  report  of  the  magistrates,  nineteen  of  the 
slaves  were  imprisoned  by  the  local  authorities,  as  having  been  con 
cerned  in  the  mutiny  and  murder;  and  their  surrender  to  the  consul, 
to  be  sent  to  the  United  States  for  trial  for  these  crimes,  was  refused, 
on  the  ground  that  the  governor  wished  first  to  communicate  with  the 
government  in  England  on  the  subject;  that,  through  the  interference 
of  the  colonial  authorities,  and  even  before  the  military  guard  was  re 
moved,  the  greater  number  of  the  slaves  were  liberated,  and  encour 
aged  to  go  beyond  the  power  of  the  master  of  the  vessel,  or  the 


45°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

American  consul,  by  proceedings  which  neither  of  them  could  control. 
This  is  the  substance  of  the  case,  as  stated  in  two  protests,  one  made 
at  Nassau  and  one  at  New  Orleans,  and  the  consul's  letters,  together 
with  sundry  depositions  taken  by  him;  copies  of  all  which  are  here 
with  transmitted." 

This  statement  of  the  case  of  the  Creole  is  derived  chiefly  from  the 
testimony  of  the  officers  and  crew  of  the  vessel,  and  very  naturally 
falls  under  suspicion  of  being  colored,  in  part,  by  prejudice  and  pas 
sion.  We  must  hear  the  other  side,  and  compare  all  the  witnesses, 
before  we  can  understand  the  whole  case. 

The  main  facts,  however,  cannot  be  misunderstood.  The  shipping 
of  the  slaves  at  Norfolk,  the  rising  of  apart  of  their  number  against 
the  officers  of  the  vessel,  the  success  of  the  insurrection,  the  carrying 
of  the  vessel  into  the  port  of  Nassau,  and  the  recognition  and  treat 
ment  of  the  slaves  as  free  by  the  British  authorities  of  that  place — 
these  material  points  of  the  case  cannot  be  questioned.  The  letter  of 
our  government,  stating  these  facts  as  grounds  of  complaint  against 
England,  is  written  with  much  caution,  and  seems  wanting  in  the  tone 
of  earnestness  and  confidence  which  naturally  belongs  to  a  good 
cause.  It  does  not  go  to  the  heart  of  the  case.  It  relies  more  on 
the  comity  of  nations  than  on  principles  of.  justice  and  natural 
law. 

Still,  in  one  respect  it  is  decided.  It  protests  against,  and  com 
plains  of,  the  Britisl^  authorities,  and  "calls  loudly  for  redress."  It 
maintains  that  "  it  was  the  plain  and  obvious  duty"  of  the  authorities 
at  Nassau  to  give  aid  and  succor  to  the  officers  of  the  Creole  in  re 
ducing  the  slaves  to  subjection,  in  resuming  their  voyage  with  their 
cargo  of  men  as  well  as  of  tobacco,  and  in  bringing  the  insurgents  to 
trial  in  this  country.  It  maintains  that  the  claims  of  the  American 
masters  to  their  slaves  existed  and  were  in  force  in  the  British  port, 
and  that  these  claims  ought  to  have  been  acknowledged  and  sustained 
by  the  British  magistrate.  The  plain  inference  is,  that  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  is  bound  to  spread  a  shield  over  American 
slavery  abroad  as  well  as  at  home.  Such  is  the  letter. 

This  document  I  propose  to  examine,  and  I  shall  do  so  chiefly  for 
two  reasons  :  first,  because  it  maintains  morally  unsound  and  perni 
cious  doctrines,  and  is  fitted  to  deprave  the  public  mind;  and  secondly, 
because  it  tends  to  commit  the  free  states  to  the  defence  and  support 
of  slavery.  This  last  point  is  at  this  moment  of  peculiar  importance. 
The  free  states  are  gradually  and  silently  coming  more  and  more  into 
connexion  with  slavery;  are  unconsciously  learning  to  regard  it  as  a 
national  interest;  and  are  about  to  pledge  their  wealth  and  strength, 
their  bones  and  muscles  and  lives,  to  its  defence.  Slavery  is  mingling 
more  and  more  with  the  politics  of  the  country,  determining  more  and 
more  the  individuals  who  shall  hold  office,  and  the  great  measures  on 
which  the  public  weal  depends.  It  is  lime  for  the  free  states  to  wake 


WILLIAM  ELLERY   CHAINING.        .  451 

up  to  the  subject;  to  weigh  it  deliberately:  to  think  of  it,  not  casually, 
when  some  startling  fact  forces  it  up  into  notice;  but  with  earnest, 
continued,  solemn  attention,  to  inquire  into  their  duties  in  regard  to 
it,  to  lay  down  their  principles;  to  mark  out  their  course;  and  to  re 
solve  on  acquitting  themselves  righteously  towards  God,  towards  the 
South,  and  towards  themselves.  The  North  has  never  come  to  this 
great  matter  in  earnest.  We  have  trifled  with  it.  We  have  left  things 
to  take  their  course.  We  have  been  too  much  absorbed  in  pecuniary 
interests  to  watch  the  bearing  of  slavery  on  the  government.  Perhaps 
we  have  wanted  the  spirit,  the  manliness,  to  look  the  subject  fully  in 
the  face.  Accordingly,  the  slave-power  has  been  allowed  to  stamp  it 
self  on  the  national  policy,  and  to  fortify  itself  with  the  national  arm. 
For  the  pecuniary  injury  to  our  prosperity  which  may  be  traced  to  this 
source  I  care  little  or  nothing.  There  is  a  higher  view  of  the  case. 
There  is  a  more  vital  question  to  be  settled  than  that  of  interest — the 
question  of  duty — and  to  this  my  remarks  will  be  confined. 

The  letter  which  is  now  to  be  examined  may  be  regarded  either  as 
the  work  of  an  individual,  or  as  the  work  of  the  government.  I  shall 
regard  it  in  the  latter  light  alone.  Its  personal  bearings  are  of  no  mo 
ment.  No  individual  will  enter  my  thoughts  in  this  discussion.  I  re 
gard  the  letter  as  issuing  from  the  Cabinet,  as  an  executive  document, 
as  laying  down  the  principles  to  which  the  public  policy  is  in  danger 
of  being  conformed,  as  fitted  to  draw  the  whole  country  into  support 
of  an  institution  which  the  free  states  abhor.  With  the  opinions  of  an 
individual  I  have  nothing  to  do.  Corrupt  principles  adopted  by  the 
government — these,  and  these  alone,  it  will  be  my  object  to  expose. 

There  is  a  difficulty  lying  at  the  threshold  of  such  a  discussion,  which 
J  should  be  glad  to  remove.  A  northern  man  writing  on  slavery  is 
supposed  to  write  as  a  northern  man,  to  be  swayed  by  state  feelings 
and  local  biasses;  and  the  distrust  thus  engendered  is  a  bar  to  the  con 
viction  which  he  might  otherwise  produce.  But  the  prejudices  which 
grow  out  of  the  spot  where  we  live  are  far  from  being  necessary  or 
universal.  There  are  persons  whose  peculiarity,  perhaps  whose  in 
firmity  it  is,  to  be  exceedingly  alive  to  evils  in  their  neighborhood,  to 
defects  in  the  state  of  society  in  which  they  live,  whilst  their  imagina 
tions  are  apt  to  cast  rosy  hues  over  distant  scenes.  There  are  per 
sons  who,  by  living  in  retirement  and  holding  intercourse  with  gifted 
minds  in  other  regions,  are  even  in  danger  of  wanting  a  proper  local 
attachment,  and  of  being  unjust  to  their  own  homes.  There  are  also 
worthier  causes  which  counteract  the  bigotry  of  provincial  feelings.  A 
man,  then  is  not  necessarily  presumptuous  in  thinking  himself  free 
from  local  biasses.  In  truth,  slavery  never  presents  itself  to  me  as  be 
longing  to  one  or  another  part  of  the  country.  It  does  not  come  to 
me  in  its  foreign  relations.  I  regard  it  simply  and  nakedly  in  itself, 
and  on  this  account  feel  that  I  have  a  right  to  discuss  it. 

May  I  be  allowed  one  more  preliminary  remark?     The  subject  of 


45 2  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

slavery  is  separated  in  my  mind  not  only  from  local  considerations,  but 
from  all  thought  of  the  individuals  by  whom  it  is  sustained.  I-  speak 
against  this  institution  freely,  earnestly,  some  may  think  vehemently; 
but  I  have  no  thought  of  attaching  the  same  reproach  to  those  who 
uphold  it;  and  this  I  say,  not  to  propitiate  the  slave-holder,  who  can 
not  easily  forgive  the  irreconcilable  enemy  of  his  wrong-doing,  but  to 
meet  the  prepossessions  of  not  a  few  among  ourselves,  who,  from  es 
teem  towards  the  slave-holder,  repel  what  seems  to  them  to  involve 
an  assault  on  his  character.  I  do,  indeed,  use,  and  cannot  but  use, 
strong  language  against  slavery.  No  greater  wrong,  no  grosser  insult 
on  humanity  can  well  be  conceived;  nor  can  it  be  softened  by  the  cus 
tomary  plea  of  the  slave-holder's  kindness.  The  first  and  most  essen 
tial  exercise  of  love  towards  a  human  being,  is  to  respect  his  rights. 
It  is  idle  to  talk  of  kindness  to  a  human  being  whose  rights  we  habit 
ually  trample  underfoot.  "Be  just  before  you  are  generous."  A 
human  being  is  not  to  be  loved  as  a  horse  or  a  dog,  but  as  a  being 
having  rights;  and  his  first  grand  right  is  that  of  free  action;  the  right 
to  use  and  expand  his  powers;  to  improve  and  obey  his  higher  facul 
ties;  to  seek  his  own  and  others'  good;  to  better  his  lot;  to  make  him 
self  a  home;  to  enjoy  inviolate  the  relations  of  husband  and  parent; 
to  live  the  life  of  a  man.  An  institution  denying  to  a  being  this  right, 
and  virtually  all  rights,  which  degrades  him  into  a  chattel,  and  puts 
him  beneath  the  level  of  his  race,  is  more  shocking  to  a  calm,  enlightened 
philanthropy  than  most  of  the  atrocities  which  we  shudder  at  in  history; 
and  this  for  a  plain  reason.  These  atrocities,  such  as  the  burning  of 
heretics,  and  the  immolation  of  the  Indian  woman  on  the  funeral  pile 
of  her  husband,  have  generally  some  foundation  in  ideas  of  duty  and 
religion.  The  inquisitor  murders  to  do  God  service;  and  the  Hindoo 
widow  is  often  fortified  against  the  flames  by  motives  of  inviolable 
constancy  and  general  self-sacrifice.  The  Indian  in  our  wilderness, 
when  he  tortures  his  captives,  thinks  of  making  an  offering,  of  making 
compensation,  to  his  own  tortured  friends.  But  in  slavery,  man  seizes 
his  brother,  subjects  him  to  brute  force,  robs  him  of  all  his  rights,  for 
purely  selfish  ends — as  selfishly  as  the  robber  fastens  on  his  prey.  No 
generous  affections,  no  ideas  of  religion  and  self-sacrifice  throw  a 
gleam  of  light  over  its  horrors. 

As  such  I  must  speak  of  slavery,  when  regarded  in  its  own  nature, 
and  especially  when  regarded  in  its  origin.  But  when  I  look  on  a 
community  among  whom  this  evil  exists,  but  who  did  not  originate  it, 
who  grew  up  in  the  midst  of  it,  who  connect  it  with  parents  and  friends, 
who  see  it  intimately  entwined  with  the  whole  system  of  domestic,  so 
cial,  industrial,  and  political  life,  who  are  blinded  by  long  habit  to  its 
evils  and  abuses,  and  who  are  alarmed  by  the  possible  evils  of  the 
mighty  change  involved  in  its  abolition,  I  shrink  from  .passing  on  such 
a  community  the  sentence  which  is  due  to  the  guilty  institution.  All 
history  furnishes  instances  of  vast  wrongs  inflicted,  of  cruel  institu- 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CH ANN  ING.  453 

lions  upheld,  by  nations  or  individuals  who  in  other  relations  manifest 
respect  for  duty.  That  slavery  has  a  blighting  moral  influence  where 
it  exists,  is,  indeed,  unquestionable;  but  in  that  bad  atmosphere  so 
much  that  is  good  and  pure  may  and  does  grow  up  as  to  forbid  us  to 
deny  esteem  and  respect  to  a  man  simply  because  he  is  a  slave-holder. 
I  offer  these  remarks  because  I  wish  that  the  subject  may  be  ap 
proached  without  the  association  of  it  with  individuals,  parties,  or  local 
divisions,  which  blind  the  mind  to  the  truth. 

I  now  return  to  the  executive  document  with  which  I  began.  I  am 
first  to  consider  its  doctrines,  to  show  their  moral  unsoundness  and 
inhumanity;  and  then  I  shall  consider  the  bearing  of  these  doctrines 
on  the  free  states  in  general,  and  the  interest  which  the  free  states  have 
at  this  critical  moment  in  the  subject  of  slavery.  Thus  my  work 
divides  itself  into  two  parts;  the  first  of  which  is  now  offered  to  the 
public. 

In  regard  to  the  reasonings  and  doctrines  of  the  document,  it  is  a 
happy  circumstance,  that  they  come  within  the  comprehension  of  the 
mass' of  the  people.  The  case  of  the  Creole  is  a  simple  one,  which  re 
quires  no  extensive  legal  study  to  be  understood.  A  man  who  has  had 
little  connexion  with  public  affairs  is  as  able  to  decide  on  it  as  the  bulk 
of  politicians.  The  elements  of  the  case  are  so  few,  and  the  principles 
on  which  its  determination  rests  are  so  obvious,  that  nothing  but  a 
sound  moral  judgment  is  necessary  to  the  discussion.  Nothing  can 
darken  it  but  legal  subtlety.  None  can  easily  doubt  it,  but  those  who 
surrender  conscience  and  reason  to  arbitrary  rules. 

The  question  between  the  American  and  English  governments  turns 
mainly  on  one  point.  The  English  government  does  not  recognize 
within  its  bounds  any  property  in  man.  It  maintains  that  slavery 
rests  wholly  on  local,  municipal  legislation;  that  it  it  is  an  institution 
not  sustained  and  enforced  by  the  law  of  nature,  and  still  more,  that  it 
is  repugnant  to  this  law;  and  that,  of  course,  no  man  who  enters  the 
territory  or  is  placed  under  the  jurisdiction  of  England  can  be  regarded 
as  a  slave,  but  must  be  treated  as  free.  The  law  creating  slavery,  it  is 
maintained,  has  and  can  have  no  force  beyond  the  state  which  creates 
it.  No  other  nation  can  be  bound  by  it.  Whatever  validity  this  ordi 
nance,  which  deprives  a  man  of  all  his  rights,  may  have  within  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  community  in  which  it  had  its  birth,  it  can  have  no 
validity  anywhere  else.  This  is  the  principle  on  which  the  English 
government  founds  itself. 

This  principle  is  so  plain  that  it  has  been  established  and  is  acted 
upon  among  ourselves,  and  in  the  neighboring  British  provinces. 
When  a  slave  is  brought  by  his  master  into  Massachusetts,  he  is  pro 
nounced  free,  on  the  ground  that  the  law  of  slavery  has  no  force  be 
yond  the  state  which  ordains  it,  and  that  the  right  of  every  man  to 
liberty  is  recognized  as  one  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  Common 
wealth.  A  slave  flying  from  his  master  to  this  Commonwealth  is, 


454  A MERK. 'AX  PA  TRIO TSSJf. 

indeed,  restored,  but  not  on  account  of  the  validity  of  the  legislation 
of  the  South  on  this  point,  but  solely  on  the  ground  of  a  posi 
tive  provision  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States;  and  he 
is  delivered,  not  as  a  slave,  but  as  a  "  person  held  to  service  by 
law  in  another  State."  We  should  not  think  for  a  moment,  of  restor 
ing  a  slave  flying  to  us  from  Cuba  or  Turkey.  We  recognize  no  right 
of  a  foreign  master  on  this  soil.  The  moment  he  brings  his  slave  here 
his  claim  vanishes  into  air;  and  this  takes  place  because  we  recognize 
freedom  as  the  right  of  every  human  being. 

By  the  provision  of  the  Constitution,  as  we  have  said,  the  fugitive 
slave  from  the  South  is  restored  by  us,  or,  at  least,  his  master's  claim 
is  not  annulled.  But  we  have  proof  at  our  door  that  this  exception 
rests  on  positive,  not  natural  law.  Suppose  the  fugitive  to  pass  through 
our  territory  undiscovered,  and  to  reach  the  soil  of  Canada.  The 
moment  he  touches  it  he  is  free.  The  master  finds  there  an  equal  in 
his  slave.  The  British  authority  extends  the  same  protection  over 
both.  Accordingly,  a  colony  of  fugitive  slaves  is  growing  up  securely, 
beyond  our  border,  in  the  enjoyment  of  all  the  rights  of  British  sub 
jects.  And  this  good  work  has  been  going  on  for  years  without  any 
complaint  against  England  as  violating  the  national  law,  and  without 
any  claim  for  compensation.  These  are  plain  facts.  We  ourselves 
construe  the  law  of  nature  and  nations  as  England  does.  But  the 
question  is  not  to  be  settled  on  the  narrow  ground  of  precedent  alone. 
Let  us  view  it  in  the  light  of  eternal,  universal  truth.  A  grand  prin 
ciple  is  involved  in  the  case,  or  rather  lies  at  its  very  foundation,  and 
to  this  I  ask  particular  attention.  This  principle  is,  that  a  man,  as  a 
man,  has  rights,  has  claims  on  his  race,  which  are  in  no  degree  touched 
or  impaired  on  account  of  the  manner  in  which  he  may  be  regarded  or 
treated  by  a  particular  clan,  tribe  or  nation  of  his  fellow-creatures. 
A  man,  by  his  very  nature,  as  an  intelligent,  moral  creature  of  God, 
has  claims  to  aid  and  kind  regard  from  all  other  men.  There  is  a 
grand  law  of  humanity  more  comprehensive  than  all  others,  and  under 
which  every  man  should  find  shelter.  He  has  not  only  a  right,  but  is 
bound  to  use  freely  and  improve  the  powers  which  God  has  given 
him,  and  other  men,  instead  of  obstructing,  are  bound  to  assist  their 
development  and  exertion.  These  claims  a  man  does  not  derive  from 
the  family  or  tribe  in  which  he  began  his  being.  They  are  not  the 
growth  of  a  particular  soil;  they  are  not  ripened  under  a  peculiar 
sky;  they  are  not  written  on  a  particular  complexion;  they  belong  to 
human  nature.  The  ground  on  which  one  man  asserts  them  all  men 
stand  on,  nor  can  they  be  denied  to  one  without  being  denied  ,to  all. 
We  have  here  a  common  interest.  We  must  all  stand  or  fall  together. 
We  all  have  claims  on  our  race,  claims  of  kindness  and  justice,  claims 
grounded  on  our  relation  to  our  common  Father,  and  on  the  inheri 
tance  of  a  common  nature. 

Because  a  number  of  men  invade  the  rights  of  a  fellow-creature,  and 


IVILLIAM  ELLERY   CH ANN  I  KG.  455 

pronounce  him  destitute  of  rights,  his  claims  are  not  a  whit  touched 
by  this.  He  is  as  much  a  man  as  before.  Not  a  single  gift  of  God  on 
which  his  rights  rest  is  taken  away.  His  relations  to  the  rest  of  his 
race  are  in  no  measure  affected.  He  is  as  truly  their  brother  as  if  his 
tribe  had  not  pronounced  him  a  brute.  If,  indeed,  any  change  takes 
place,  his  claims  are  enhanced,  on  the  ground  that  the  sufferingand  in 
jured  are  entitled  to  peculiar  regard.  If  any  rights  should  be  singularly- 
sacred  in  our  sight,  they  are  those  which  are  denied  and  trodden  in  the 
dust. 

It  seems  to  be  thought  by  some  that  a  man  derives  all  his  rights 
from  the  nation  to  which  he  belongs.  They  are  gifts  of  the  state,  and 
the  state  may  take  them  away  if  it  will.  A  man,  it  is  thought,  has 
claims  on  other  men,  not  as  a  man,  but  as  an  Englishman,  an  Ameri 
can,  or  a  subject  of  some  other  state.  He  must  produce  his  parch 
ment  of  citizenship  before  he  binds  other  men  to  protect  him,  to  re 
spect  his  free  agency,  to  leave  him  the  use  of  his  powers  according  to 
his  own  will.  Local,  municipal  law  is  thus  made  the  fountain  and 
measure  of  rights.  The  stranger  must  tell  us  where  he  was  born, 
what  privileges  he  enjoyed  at  home,  or  no  tie  links  us  to  one  another. 

In  conformity  to  these  views,  it  is  thought,  that,  when  one  commu 
nity  declares  a  man  to  be  a  slave,  other  communities  must  respect  this 
decree;  that  the  duties  of  a  foreign  nation  to  an  individual  are  to  be 
determined  by  a  brand  set  on  him  on  his  own  shores;  that  his  relations 
to  the  whole  race  may  be  affected  by  the  local  act  of  a  community,  no 
matter  how  small  or  how  unjust. 

This  is  a  terrible  doctrine.  It  strikes  a  blow  at  all  the  rights  of 
human  nature.  It  enables  the  political  body  to  which  we  belong,  no 
matter  how  wicked  or  weak,  to  make  each  of  us  an  outcast  from  his 
race.  It  makes  a  man  nothing  in  himself.  As  a  man,  he  has  no  sig 
nificance.  He  is  sacred  only  as  far  as  some  state  has  taken  him  under 
its  care.  Stripped  of  his  nationality,  he  is  at  the  mercy  of  all  who 
may  incline  to  lay  hold  on  him.  He  may  be  seized,  imprisoned,  sent 
to  work  in  galleys  or  mines,  unless  some  foreign  state  spreads  its 
shield  over  him  as  one  of  its  citizens. 

This  doctrine  is  as  false  as  it  is  terrible.  Man  is  not  the  mere  crea 
ture  of  the  state.  Man  is  older  than  nations,  and  he  is  to  survive 
nations.  There  is  a  law  of  humanity  more  primitive  and  divine  than 
the  law  of  the  land.  He  has  higher  claims  than  those  of  a  citizen.  He 
has  rights  which  date  before  all  charters  and  communities;  not  con 
ventional,  not  repealable,  but  as  eternal  as  the  powers  and  laws  of  his 
being. 

This  annihilation  of  the  individual  by  merging  him  in  the 
state  lies  at  the  foundation  of  despotism.  The  nation  is  too 
often  the  grave  of  the  man.  This  is  the  more  monstrous,  because  the 
very  end  of  the  state,  of  the  organization  of  the  nation,  is 
to  secure  the  individual  in  all  his  rights,  anJ  especially,  to  se- 


45 6  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

cure  the  rights  of  the  weak.  Here  is  the  fundamental  idea  of  political 
association.  In  an  unorganized  society,  with  no  legislation,  no 
tribunal,  no  empire,  rights  have  no  security.  Force  predominates 
over  right.  This  is  the  grand  evil  of  what  is  called  the  state  of 
nature.  To  repress  this,  to  give  right  the  ascendancy  over  force, 
this  is  the  grand  idea  and  end  of  government,  of  country,  of 
political  constitutions.  And  yet  we  are  taught  that  it  depends  on 
the  law  of  a  man's  country,  whether  he  shall  have  rights,  and  whether 
other  states  shall  regard  him  as  a  man.  When  cast  on  a  foreign  shore, 
his  country,  and  not  his  humanity,  is  to  be  inquired  into,  and  the 
treatment  he  receives  is  to  be  proportioned  to  what  he  meets  at 
home.  Men  worship  power,  worship  great  organizations,  and  over 
look  the  individual;  and  few  things  have  depraved  the  moral  senti 
ment  of  men  more,  or  brought  greater  woes  on  the  race.  The  state, 
or  the  ruler  in  whom  the  state  is  embodied,  continues  to  be  worshipped, 
notwithstanding  the  commission  of  crimes  which  would  inspire  horror 
in  the  private  man.  How  insignificant  are  the  robberies,  murders, 
piracies,  which  the  law  makes  capital,  in  comparison  with  an  unjust  or 
unnecessary  war,  dooming  thousands,  perhaps  millions,  of  the  inno 
cent  to  the  most  torturing  forms  of  death,  or  with  the  law  of  an  auto 
crat  or  of  a  public  body,  depriving  millions  of  all  the  rights  of  men  ! 
But  these,  because  the  acts  of  the  state,  escape  the  execrations  of  the 
world. 

In  consequence  of  this  worship  of  governments  it  is  thought  that 
their  relations  to  one  another  are  alone  important.  A  government 
is  too  great  to  look  at  a  stranger,  except  as  he  is  incorporated 
with  some  state.  It  can  have  nothing  to  do  but  with  political  or 
ganizations  like  itself.  But  the  humble  stranger  has  a  claim  on 
it  as  sacred  as  another  state.  Standing  alone,  he  yet  has  rights,  and  to 
violate  them  is  as  criminal  as  to  violate  the  stipulations  with  a  foreign 
power.  In  one  view  it  is  baser.  It  is  as  true  of  governments  as  of 
individuals,  that  it  is  base  and  unmanly  to  trample  on  the  weak.  He 
who  invades  the  strong  shows  a  courage  which  does  something  to  re 
deem  his  violence;  but  to  tread  on  the  neck  of  a  helpless,  friendless 
fellow-creature  is  to  add  meanness  to  wrong. 

If  the  doctrine  be  true,  that  the  character  impressed  on  a  man  at 
home  follows  him  abroad,  and  that  he  is  to  be  regarded,  not  as  a  man, 
but  as  the  local  laws  which  he  has  left  regard  him,  why  shall  not  this 
apply  to  the  peculiar  advantages  as  well  as  disadvantages  which  a  man 
enjoys  in  his  own  land  ?  Why  shall  not  he  whom  the  laws  invest  with 
a  right  to  universal  homage  at  home  receive  the  same  tribute  abroad? 
Why  shall  not  he  whose  rank  exempts  him  from  the  ordinary  restraints 
of  law  on  his  own  shores  claim  the  same  lawlessness  elsewhere  ? 
Abroad  these  distinctions  avail  him  nothing.  The  local  law  which 
makes  him  a  kind  of  deity  deserts  him  the  moment  he  takes  a  step 
beyond  his  country's  borders;  and  why  shall  the  disadvantages,  the 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CIIAXNING.  457 

terrible  wrongs,  which  that  law  inflicts,  follow  the  poor  sufferer  to  the 
end  of  the  earth  ? 

I  repeat  it,  for  the  truth  deserves  reiteration,  that  all  nations  are 
bound  to  respect  the  rights  of  every  human  being.  This  is  God's  law, 
as  old  as  the  world.  No  local  law  can  touch  it.  No  ordinance  of  a 
particular  state,  degrading  a  set  of  men  to  chattels,  can  absolve  all 
nations  from  the  obligation  of  regarding  the  injured  beings  as  men.  or 
bind  them  to  send  back  the  injured  to  their  chains.  The  character  of 
a  slave,  attached  to  a  man  by  a  local  government,  is  not  and  cannot  be 
incorporated  into  his  nature.  It  does  not  cling  to  him,  go  where  he 
will.  The  scar  of  slavery  on  his  back  does  not  reach  his  soul.  The 
arbitrary  relation  between  him  and  his  master  cannot  suspend  the 
primitive,  indestructible  relation  by  which  God  binds  him  to  his  kind. 

The  idea,  that  a  particular  state  may  fix  enduringly  this  stigma  on  a 
human  being,  and  can  bind  the  most  just  and  generous  men  to  respect 
it,  should  be  rejected  with  scorn  and  indignation.  It  reminds  us  of 
those  horrible  fictions  in  which  some  demon  is  described  as  stamping 
an  indelible  mark  of  hell  on  his  helpless  victims.  It  was  the  horrible 
peculiarity  of  the  world  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  that  it  had  become 
one  vast  prison.  The  unhappy  man  on  whom  the  blighting  suspicion 
of  the  tyrant  had  fallen  could  find  no  shelter  or  escape  through  the 
whole  civilized  regions  of  the  globe.  Everywhere  his  sentence  fol 
lowed  him  like  fate.  And  can  the  law  of  a  despot,  or  of  a  chamber  of 
despots,  extend  now  the  same  fearful  doom  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  ? 
Can  a  little  state  at  the  South  spread  its  web  of  cruel,  wrongful  legis 
lation  over  both  continents  ?  Do  all  communities  become  spellbound 
by  a  law  in  a  single  country  creating  slavery  ?  Must  they  become  the 
slave's  jailers?  Must  they  be  less  merciful  than  the  storm  which 
drives  off  the  bondsmen  from  the  detested  shore  of  servitude  and 
casts  him  on  the  soil  of  freedom  ?  Must  even  that  soil  become  tainted 
by  an  ordinance  passed  perhaps  in  another  hemisphere?  Has  oppres 
sion  this  terrible  omnipresence  ?  Must  the  whole  earth  register  the 
slaveholder's  decree?  Then  the  earth  is  blighted  indeed.  Then,  as 
some  ancient  sects  taught;  it  is  truly  the  empire  of  the  principles  of 
evil,  of  the  power  of  darkness.  Then  God  is  dethroned  here;  for 
where  injustice  and  oppression  are  omnipotent  God  has  no  empire. 

I  have  thus  stated  the  great  principles  on  which  the  English  authori 
ties  acted  in  the  case  of  the  Creole,  and  on  which  all  nations  are  bound 
to  act.  Slavery  is  the  creature  of  local  law,  having  power  not  a 
handbreadth  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the  country  which  ordains  it. 
Other  nations  know  nothing  of  it,  are  bound  to  pay  it  no  heed.  I 
might  add  that  other  nations  are  bound  to  tolerate  it  within  the  bounds 
of  a  particular  state  only  on  the  grounds  on  which  they  suffer  a  par 
ticular  state  to  establish  bloody  superstitions,  to  use  the  rack  in  juris 
prudence,  or  to  practise  other  enormities.  They  might  much  more 
justifiably  put  down  slavery  where  it  exists  than  enforce  a  foreign  slave 


45 8  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

code  within  their  own  bounds.  Such  is  the  impregnable  principle 
which  we  of  the  free  states  should  recognize  and  earnestly  sustain. 
This  principle  our  government  has  not  explicitly  denied  in  its  letter  to 
our  minister  in  London.  The  letter  is  chiefly  employed  in  dilating  on 
various  particular  circumstances  which,  it  is  said,  entitled  the  Creole  to 
assistance  from  the  British  authorities  in  the  prosecution  of  the  voyage 
with  her  original  freight  and  passengers.  The  strength  of  the  docu 
ment  lies  altogether  in  the  skilful  manner  in  which  these  circumstances 
are  put  together.  I  shall  therefore  proceed  to  consider  them  with 
some  minuteness.  They  are  briefly  these.  The  vessel  was  engaged 
in  a  voyage  "  perfectly  lawful."  She  was  taken  to  a  British  port, 
"  not  voluntarily,  by  those  who  had  the  lawful  authority  over  her," 
but  forcibly  and  violently,  "against  the  master's  will,  without  any 
agency  or  solicitation  on  the  part  of  the  great  majority  of  the  slaves, 
and,  indeed  solely  by  the  few  "  mutineers"  who  had  gained  possession 
of  her  by  violence  and  bloodshed.  The  slaves  were  "still  on  board" 
the  American  vessel.  They  had  not  become  "  incorporated  with  the 
English  population  ;"  and  from  these  facts  it  is  argued  that  they  had 
not  changed  their  original  character,  that  the  vessel  containing  them 
ought  to  have  been  regarded  as  "still  on  her  voyage,"  and  should 
have  been  aided  to  resume  it,  according  to  that  law  of  comity  and 
hospitality  by  which  nations  are  bound  to  aid  one  another's  vessels  in 
distress. 

It  is  encouraging  to  see  in  this  reasoning  of  the  letter  a  latent 
acknowledgment,  that,  had  the  vessel  been  carried  with  the  slaves 
into  the  British  port  by  the  free  will  of  the  captain,  the  slaves  would 
have  been  entitled  to  liberty.  The  force  and  crime  involved  in  the 
transaction  form  the  strength  of  the  case  as  stated  by  ourselves.  The 
whole  tone  of  the  communication  undesignedly  recognizes  important 
rights  in  a  foreign  state  in  regard  to  slaves  carried  voluntarily  to  their 
shores;  and  by  this  concession  it  virtually  abandons  the  whole  ground. 

But  let  us  look  at  the  circumstances,  which,  it  is   said,  bound   the 
British  authorities  to  assist  the  captain  in  sending  back  the  slaves  to 
their  chains  ;  and  one  general  remark  immediately   occurs.     These 
circumstances  do  not  touch,  in  the  slightest  degree,  the  great  principle 
on  which  the  authorities  were  bound  by  British  and  natural  law  to  act.    ' 
This  principle,  as  we  have  stated,  is,  that  a  nation   is  bound  by  the  * 
law  of  nature  to  respect  the  rights  of  every  human  being,  that  every 
man  within  its  jurisdiction  is  entitled  to  its   protection  as  long  as  he 
obeys  its  laws,  that  the  private  individual   may  appeal  to   the   broad 
law  of  humanity  and  claim  hospitality  as  truly  as  a  state. 

Now  how  did  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  Creole  bear  on  this 
fundamental  view  of  the  case  ?  Did  the  manner  in  which  the  slaves  of 
the  Creole  were  carried  to  Nassau  in  any  measure  affect  their  char 
acter  as  men.  Did  they  cease  to  be  men,  because  the  .ship  was  seized 
by  violence,  the  captain  imprisoned,  and  the  vessel  turned  from  its 


.  WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING.  459 

original  destination  ?  Did  the  shifting  of  the  vessel's  course  by  a  few 
points  of  the  compass,  or  did  the  government  of  the  helm  by  a  "  mu 
tineer,"  transmute  a  hundred  or  more  men  into  chattels?  To  the 
eye  of  the  British  officer,  the  slaves  looked  precisely  as  they  would 
have  done,  had  they  been  brought  to  the  island  by  any  other  means. 
He  could  see  nothing  but  human  beings  ;  and  no  circumstances  leav 
ing  this  character  on  them,  could  have  authorized  him  to  deny  them 
human  rights.  It  mattered  nothing  to  him  how  they  came  to  the 
island  ;  for  this  did  not  touch  at  all  the  ground  of  their  claim  to  pro 
tection. 

A  case,  indeed,  is  imagined  in  the  document,  in  which  it  is  said  that 
the  manner  of  transportation  of  slaves  to  a  foreign  port  must  deter 
mine  the  character  in  which  they  shall  be  viewed.  "  Suppose  an 
American  vessel  with  slaves  lawfully  on  board  were  to  be  captured  by 
a  British  cruiser,  as  belonging  to  some  belligerent,  while  the  United 
States  were  at  peace  ;  suppose  such  prize  carried  into  England,  and 
the  neutrality  of  the  vessel  fully  made  out  in  the  proceedings  in  Ad 
miralty,  and  a  restoration  consequently  decreed;  in  such  case  must 
not  the  slaves  be  restored  exactly  in  the  condition  in  which  they  were 
when  the  capture  was  made  ?  Would  any  one  contend  that  the  fact 
of  their  having  been  carried  into  England  by  force  set  them  free  ?"  I 
reply,  undoubtedly  they  would  be  free  the  moment  they  should  enter 
English  jurisdiction.  A  Writ  of  habeas  corpus  could  and  would  and 
must  be  granted  them,  if  demanded  by  themselves  or  their  friends,  and 
no  court  would  dare  to  remit  them  to  their  chains;  and  this  is  not  only 
English  law,  but  in  the  spirit  of  universal  law.  In  this  case,  however, 
compensation  would  undoubtedly  be  made  by  the  captors  for  the 
slaves,  not  on  the  ground  of  any  claim  in  the  slave-holder,  but  be 
cause  of  the  original  wrong  by  the  captors,  and  of  their  consequent 
obligation  to  replace  the  vessel,  as  much  as  possible,  in  the  condition 
in  which  she  was  found  at  the  moment  of  being  seized  on  the  open 
ocean,  where  she  was  captured  on  groundless  suspicion,  where  she  had 
a  right  to  prosecute  her  voyage  without  obstruction,  and  whence  she 
ought  not*  to  have  been  brought  by  the  capturing  state  within  its  juris 
diction  and  made  subject  to  its  laws. 

Let  us  now  consider  particularly  the  circumstances  on  which  the 
United  States  maintain  that  the  British  authorities  were  bound  to  re 
place  the  slaves  under  the  master  of  the  Creole,  and  violated  their 
duty  in  setting  them  free. 

It  is  insisted,  first,  that  "the  Creole  was  passing  from  one  port  to 
another  in  a  voyage  perfectly  lawful."  We  cannot  but  lament,  that, 
to  sustain  this  point  of  the  lawfulness  of  the  voyage,  it  is  affirmed  that 
"  slaves  are  recognized  as  property  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  in  those  states  in  which  slavery  exists."  Were  this  true,  it  is 
one  of  those  truths  which  respect  for  our  country  should  prevent  our 
intruding  on  the  notice  of  strangers.  A  child  should  throw  a  mantle 


460  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

over  the  nakedness  of  his  parent.  But  the  language  seems  to  me 
stronger  than  the  truth.  The  Constitution  was  intended  not  to  inter 
fere  with  the  laws  of  property  in  the  states  where  slaves  had  been 
held.  But  the  recognition  of  a  moral  right  in  the  slave-holder  is  most 
carefully  avoided  in  that  instrument.  Slaves  are  three  times  re 
ferred  to,  but  always  as  persons,  not  as  property.  The  free  states 
are,  indeed,  bound  to  deliver  up  fugitive  slaves;  but  these  are  to  be 
surrendered,  not  as  slaves,  but  as  "  persons  held  to  service." 
The  clause  applies  as  much  to  fugitive  apprentices  from  the 
North  as  to  fugitive  slaves  from  the  South.  The  history  of 
this  clause  is  singular.  In  the  first  draft  of  the  Constitution  it 
stood  thus:  "  No  person,  legally  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  state, 
escaping  into  another,  shall,  in  consequence  of  regulations  subsisting 
therein,  be  discharged  from  such  service  or  labor,  but  shall  be  deliv 
ered  up,"  etc.  Mr.  Madison  tells  us  that  "the  term  'legally'  was 
struck  out;  and  the  words,  '  under  the  laws  thereof  inserted  after  the 
word  'state, 'in  compliance  with  the  wish  of  some  who  thought  the 
term  legal  equivocal,  and  favoring  the  idea  that  slavery  was  legal  in  a 
moral  view.  It  ought  also  to  be  added,  that,  in  the  debate  in  the 
convention  on  that  clause  of  the  Constitution  which  conferred  power 
on  Congress  to  abolish  the  importation  of  slaves  in  1808,  "  Mr  Madi 
son  thought  it  wrong  to  admit  in  the  Constitution  the  idea  that  there 
could  be  property  in  men."  Most  memorable  testimony  to  the  truth 
from  this  greatest  constitutional  authority!  With  the  knowledge  of 
these  facts  our  government  had  no  apology  for  holding  up  the  great 
national  charter  as  recognizing  property  in  man.  The  phraseology 
and  history  of  the  Constitution  afford  us  some  shelter,  however  in 
sufficient,  from  the  moral  condemnation  of  the  world;  and  we  should 
not  gratuitously  cast  it  away. 

Whilst,  however,  we  censure  this  clause  in  the  executive  document, 
we  rejoice  that  on  one  point  it  is  explicit.  It  affirms  that  "  slaves  are 
recognized  as  property  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  in 
those  states  in  which  slavery  exists."  Here  we  have  the  limit  pre 
cisely  defined  within  which  the  Constitution  spreads  its  shield  over 
slavery.  These  limits  are,  "the  states  in  which  slavery  exists." 
Beyond  these  it  recognizes  no  property  in  man,  and,  of  course,  be 
yond  these  it  cannot  take  this  property  under  its  protection.  The 
moment  the  slave  leaves  the  states  within  which  slavery  exists,  the 
Constitution  knows  nothing  of  him  as  property.  Of  consequence,  the 
national  government  has  no  right  to  touch  the  case  of  the  Creole.  As 
soon  as  that  vessel  passed  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the  state  where 
she  received  her  passengers,  the  slaves  ceased  to  be  property,  in  the 
eye  of  the  Constitution.  The  national  authorities  were  no  longer 
bound  to  interfere  with  and  to  claim  them  as  such.  The  nation's 
force  was  no  longer  pledged  to  subject  them  to  their  masters.  Its  re 
lation  to  them  had  wholly  ceased.  On  this  point  we  are  bound  to 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CH ANN  ING.  461 

adopt  the  strictest  construction  of  the  instrument.  The  free  States 
should  not  suffer  themselves  to  be  carried  a  hair's  breadth  beyond  the 
line  within  which  they  are  pledged  to  the  dishonorable  office  of  pro 
tecting  slavery. 

But,  leaving  this  clause,  I  return  to  the  first  consideration  adduced 
to  substantiate  the  claim  of  the  Creole  to  the  assistance  of  the  British 
authorities.  The  voyage,  we  are  told,  was  "  perfectly  lawful."  Be  it 
so.  But  this  circumstance,  according  to  the  principles  of  the  free 
states,  involves  no  obligation  of  another  community  to  enforce  sla 
very,  or  to  withhold  from  the  slave  the  rights  of  a  man.  Suppose  the 
Creole  had  sailed  to  Massachusetts  with  her  slaves.  The  voyage 
would  have  been  "  lawful;"  but  on  entering  the  port  of  Boston  her 
slaves  would  have  been  pronounced  free.  The  "  right  of  property"  in 
them  conferred  by  a  slave  state  would  have  ceased.  The  lawfulness 
of  the  voyage,  then,  gives  the  slave-holder  no  claim  on  another  gov 
ernment  into  the  ports  of  which  his  slave  may  be  carried. 

Again,  what  is  meant  by  the  "  perfect  lawfulness"  of  the  voyage? 
Does  it  mean  that  the  Creole  shipped  the  slaves  under  the  law  of  na 
ture  or  the  law  of  Great  Britain  ?  Certainly  not,  but  solely  under  the 
law  of  America;  so  that  the  old  question  recurs,  whether  a  local,  mu 
nicipal  law,  authorizing  an  American  vessel  to  convey  slaves,  binds  all 
nations,  to  whose  territory  these  unhappy  persons  may  be  carried,  to 
regard  them  as  property,  to  treat  them  as  the  pariahs  of  the  human 
race.  This  is  the  simple  question,  and  one  not  hard  of  solution. 

"The  voyage  was  perfectly  lawful,"  we  are  told.  So  would  be  the 
voyage  of  a  Turkish  ship  freighted  with  Christian  slaves  from  Con 
stantinople.  Suppose  such  a  vessel  driven  by  storms  or  carried  by 
force  into  a  Christian  port.  Would  any  nation  ?n  Europe,  or  would 
America,  feel  itself  bound  to  assist  the  Turkish  slaver  to  replace  the 
chains  on  Christian  captives  whom  the  elements  or  their  own  courage 
had  set  free,  to  sacrifice  to  the  comity  and  hospitality  and  usages  of 
nations  the  law  of  humanity  and  Christian  brotherhood  ? 

"The  voyage,"  we  are  told,  "  was  perfectly  lawful."  Suppose  now 
that  a  slave-holding  country  should  pass  a  law  ordaining  and  describ 
ing  a  chain  as  a  badge  of  bondage,  and  authorizing  the  owner  to  carry 
about  his  slave  fastened  to  himself  by  this  sign  of  property.  Suppose 
the  master  to  go  with  slave  and  chain  to  a  foreign  country.  His  jour 
ney  would  be  "  lawful;"  but  would  the  foreign  government  be  bound 
to  respect  this  ordinance  of  the  distant  state  ?  Would  the  authorized 
chain  establish  property  in  the  slave  over  the  whole  earth  ?  We  know 
it  would  not;  and  why  should  the  authorized  vessel  impose  a  more  real 
obligation  ? 

It  seems  to  be  supposed  by  some  that  there  is  a  peculiar  sacredness 
in  a  vessel,  which  exempts  it  from  all  control  in  the  ports  of  other 
nations.  A  vessel  is  sometimes  said  to  be  "an  extension  of  the  terri 
tory"  to  which  it  belongs.  The  nation,  we  are  told,  is  present  in  the 


462  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

vessel,  and  its  honor  and  rights  are  involved  in  the  treatment  which 
its  flag  receives  abroad.  Those  ideas  are  in  the  main  true  in  regard 
to  ships  on  the  high  seas.  The  sea  is  the  exclusive  property  of  no 
nation.  It  is  subject  to  none.  It  is  the  common  and  equal  property 
of  all.  No  state  has  jurisdiction  over  it.  No  state  can  write  its  laws 
on  that  restless  surface.  A  ship  at  sea  carries  with  her  and  represents 
the  rights  of  her  country,  rights  equal  to  those  which  any  other  enjoys. 
The  slightest  application  of  the  laws  of  another  nation  to  her  is  to  be 
resisted.  She  is  subjected  to  no  law  but  that  of  her  own  country,  and 
to  the  law  of  nations,  which  presses  equally  on  all  states.  She  may 
thus  be  called,  with  no  violence  to  language,  an  extension  of  the  terri 
tory  to  which  she  belongs.  But  suppose  her  to  quit  the  open  sea  and 
enter  a  port.  What  a  change  is  produced  in  her  condition  !  At  sea 
she  sustained  the  same  relations  to  all  nations,  those  of  an  equal.  Now 
she  sustains  a  new  and  peculiar  relation  to  the  nation  which  she  has 
entered.  She  passes  at  once  under  its  jurisdiction.  She  is  subject  to 
its  laws.  She  is  entered  by  its  officers.  If  a  criminal  flies  to  her  for 
shelter,  he  may  be  pursued  and  apprehended.  If  her  own  men  violate 
the  laws  of  the  land,  they  may  be  seized  and  punished.  The  nation  is 
not  present  in  her.  She  has  left  the  open  highway  of  the  ocean, 
where  all  nations  are  equals,  and  entered  a  port  where  one  nation 
alone  is  clothed  with  authority.  What  matters  it  that  a  vessel  in  the 
harbor  of  Nassau  is  owned  in  America  ?  This  does  not  change  her 
locality.  She  has  contracted  new  duties  and  obligations  by  being 
placed  under  a  new  jurisdiction.  Her  relations  differ  essentially  from 
those  which  she  sustained  at  home  or  on  the  open  sea.  These  re 
marks  apply,  of  course,  to  merchant  vessels  alone.  A  ship  of  war  is 
"  an  extension  of  the  territory"  to  which  she  belongs  not  only  when 
she  is  on  the  ocean,  but  in  a  foreign  port.  In  this  respect  she  resem 
bles  an  army  marching  by  consent  through  a  neutral  country.  Neither 
ship  of  war  nor  army  falls  under  the  jurisdiction  of  foreign  states. 
Merchant  vessels  resemble  individuals.  Both  become  subject  to  the 
laws  of  the  land  which  they  enter. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  consider  the  next  circumstance,  on  which 
much  stress  is  laid  to  substantiate  the  claim  of  our  government.  "The 
vessel  was  taken  to  a  British  port,  not  voluntarily,  by  those  who  had 
the  lawful  authority  over  her,  but  forcibly  and  violently,  against  the 
master's  will,  by  mutineers  and  murdejers,"  etc. 

To  this  various  replies  are  contained  in  the  preceding  remarks.  The 
first  is,  that  the  local  laws  of  one  country  are  not  transported  to  an 
other,  and  do  not  become  of  force  there,  because  a  vessel  of  the  for 
mer  is  carried  by  violence  into  the  ports  of  the  latter.  Another  is,  that  a 
vessel  entering  the  harbor  of  a  foreign  state,  through  mutiny  or  vio 
lence,  is  not  on  this  account  exempted  from  its  jurisdiction  or  laws. 
She  may  not  set  its  authorities  at  defiance  because  brought  within  its 
waters  against  her  own  will.  There  may,  indeed,  be  local  laws  in- 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING.  463 

tended  to  exclude  foreigners,  which  it  would  be  manifestly  unjust  and 
inhuman  to  enforce  on  such  as  may  be  driven  to  the  excluding  state 
against  their  own  consent.  But  as  to  the  laws  of  a  country  founded  on 
the  universal  principles  of  justice  and  humanity,  these  are  binding  on 
foreign  vessels  under  whatever  circumstances  they  may  be  brought 
within  its  jurisdiction.  There  is  still  another  view  of  this  subject, 
which  I  have  already  urged,  but  which  is  so  important  as  to  deserve 
repetition.  The  right  of  the  slaves  of  the  Creole  to  liberation  was  not 
at  all  touched  by  the  mode  in  which  they  were  brought  to  Nassau. 
No  matter  how  they  got  there,  whether  by  sea,  land,  or  air,  whether 
by  help  of  saint  or  sinner.  A  man's  right  to  freedom  is  derived  from 
none  of  these  accidents,  but  inheres  in  him  as  a  man,  and  nothing 
which  does  not  touch  his  humanity  can  impair  it.  The  slaves  of  the 
Creole  were  not  a  whit  the  less  men  because  "mutiny"  had  changed 
their  course  on  the  ocean.  They  stood  up  in  the  port  of  Nassau  with 
all  the  attributes  of  men,  and  the  government  could  not  without  wrong 
have  denied  their  character  and  corresponding  claims. 

We  are  now  prepared  for  the  consideration  of  another  circumstance 
in  the  case  of  the  Creole  on  which  stress  is  laid.  We  are  told  by  our 
government  that  they  were  "still  in  the  ship"  when  they  were  declared 
free,  and  on  this  account  their  American  character,  that  is,  the  char 
acter  of  slavery,  adhered  to  them.  This  is  a  view  of  the  case  more 
fitted  perhaps  than  any  other  to  impress  the  inconsiderate.  The  slaves 
had  not  changed  their  position,  had  not  touched  the  shore.  The  ves 
sel  was  American.  They  trod  on  American  planks;  they  slept  within 
American  walls.  They  of  course  belonged  to  America,  and  were  to 
be  viewed  only  in  their  American  character.  To  this  reasoning  the 
principles  already  laid  down  furnish  an  easy  answer.  It  is  true  that 
the  slaves  were  in  an  American  ship;  but  there  is  another  truth  more 
pregnant;  they  were  also  in  another  country,  where  American  law  has 
no  power.  The  vessel  had  not  carried  America  to  the  port  of  Nassau. 
The  slaves  had  changed  countries.  What  though  they  were  there  in  an 
American  ship  ?  They  were  therefore  not  the  less  within  English  ter 
ritory  and  English  jurisdiction.  The  two  or  three  inches  of  plank 
which  separated  them  from  the  waves  had  no  miraculous  power  to  pre 
vent  them  from  being  where  they  were.  The  water  which  embosomed 
the  vessel  was  English-  The  air  they  breathed  was  English.  The  laws 
under  which  they  had  passed  were  English.  One  would  think,  from 
the  reasoning  to  which  I  am  replying,  that  the  space  occupied  by  a 
vessel  in  a  foreign  port  is  separated  fora  time  from  the  country  to  which 
it  formerly  belonged,  that  it  takes  the  character  cf  the  vessel,  and  falls 
under  the  laws  of  the  land  to  which  she  appertains;  that  the  authorities 
which  have  controlled  it  for  ages  must  not  enter  it,  whilst  the  foreign 
planks  are  floating  in  it,  to  repress  crime  or  enforce  just-ce.  But  this 
is  all  a  fiction.  The  slaves,  whilst  in  the  ship,  were  in  a  foreign  country 
as  truly  as  if  they  had  plunged  into  the  waves  or  set  foot  on  shore. 


464  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

We  will  now  consider  another  circumstance  to  which  importance  is 
attached  in  the  document  of  our  executive.  We  are  told  that  "  the 
slaves  could  not  be  regarded  as  having  become  mixed  up  or  incorpor 
ated  with  the  British  population,  or  as  having  changed  character  at  all, 
either  in  regard  to  country  or  personal  condition."  To  this  it  is 
replied,  that  no  one  pretends  that  the  slaves  had  become  Englishmen, 
or  had  formed  a  special  relation  to  Great  Britain,  on  account  of  which 
she  was  compelled  to  liberate  them.  It  was  not  as  a  part  of  the  Brit 
ish  population  that  they  were  declared  free.  Had  the  authorities  at 
Nassau  taken  this  ground,  they  might  have  been  open  to  the  com 
plaints  of  our  government.  The  slaves  were  pronounced  free,  not 
because  of  any  national  character  which  they  sustained,  but  because 
they  were  men,  and  because  Great  Britain  held  itself  bound  to  respect 
the  law  of  nature  with  regard  to  men.  It  was  not  necessary  for  them 
to  be  incorporated  with  the  British  population  in  order  to  acquire  the 
common  rights  of  human  beings.  One  great  error  iu  the  document  is, 
that  a  government  is  supposed  to  owe  nothing  to  a  human  being  who 
lands  on  its  shores,  any  farther  than  his  nation  may  require.  It  is 
thought  to  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  inquire  into  his  nationality  and 
to  fulfil  the  obligations  which  this  imposes.  He  has  no  rights  to  set 
up,  unless  his  own  government  stand  by  him.  Thus  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  law  of  nature  are  set  at  naught.  Thus  all  rights  are 
resolved  into  benefactions  of  the  state,  and  man  is  nothing,  unless 
incorporated,  mixed  up,  with  the  population  of  a  particular  country. 
This  doctrine  is  too  monstrous  to  be  openly  avowed,  but  it  lies  at  the 
foundation  of  most  of  the  reasonings  of  the  document.  The  man,  I 
repeat  it,  is  older  and  more  sacred  than  the  citizen.  The  slave  of  the 
Creole  had  no  other  name  to  take.  His  own  country  had  declared 
him  not  to  be  a  citizen.  He  had  been  scornfully  refused  a  place 
among  the  American  people.  He  was  only  a  Man;  and  was  that  a 
low  title  on  which  to  stand  up  among  men  ?  Nature  knows  no  higher 
on  earth.  English  law  knows  no  higher.  Shall  we  find  fault  with  a 
country,  because  an  outcast  man  landing  on  its  shore  is  declared  free 
without  the  formality  of  becoming  incorporated  writh  its  population  ? 

The  slaves,  we  are  told  in  the  argument  which  we  are  considering, 
as  they  had  no  claim  to  be  considered  as  mixed  up  with  the  British 
population,  had  not,  therefore,  changed  their  character  either  in  regard 
to  "country  or  condition."  The  old  sophistry  reigns  here.  It  is 
taken  for  granted  that  a  man  has  no  character  but  that  of  country  and 
condition.  In  other  words,  he  must  be  regarded  by  foreign  states  as 
belonging  to  a  particular  nation,  and  treated  according  to  this  view, 
and  no  other.  Now  the 'truth  is,  that  there  is  a  primitive,  indelible 
"character"  fastened  on  a  man,  far  more  important  than  that  of 
"country  or  condition;"  and,  looking  at  this,  I  joyfully  accord  with 
our  Cabinet  in  saying  that  the  slaves  of  the  Creole  did  not  "change 
their  character"  by  touching  British  soil.  There  they  stood  with  the 


WILLIAM  ELLERY   CIIANNIXG.  465 

character  which  God  impressed  on  them,  and  which  man  can  never 
efface.  The  British  authorities  gave  them  no  new  character,  but 
simply  recognized  that  which  they  had  worn  from  the  day  of  their 
birth,  the  only  one  which  cannot  pass  away. 

I  have  now  considered  all  the  circumstances  stated  in  the  document 
as  grounds  of  complaint,  with  one  exception,  and  this  I  have  deferred 
on  account  of  its  uncertainty,  and  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  more  satis 
factory  information.  The  circumstance  is  this,  "  that  the  slaves 
were  liberated  by  the  interference  of  the  colonial  authorities;"  that 
these  "  not  only  gave  no  aid,  but  did  actually  interfere  to  set  free  the 
slaves,  and  to  enable  them  to  disperse  themselves  beyond  the  reach 
of  the  master  of  their  vessel  or  their  owners."  This  statement  is  taken 
from  the  protest  of  the  captain  and  crew  made  at  New  Orleans,  which 
indeed,  uses  much  stronger  language,  and  charges  on  'the  British 
authorities  much  more  exceptional  interference.  This,  as  I  have  said, 
is  to  be  suspected  of  exaggeration  or  unjust  coloring,  not  on  the 
ground  of  any  peculiar  falseness  in  the  men  who  signed  it,  but  because 
of  the  tendency  of  passion  and  interest  to  misconstrue  the  offensive 
conduct  of  others.  But  admitting  the  correctness  of  the  protest,  we 
cannot  attach  importance  to  the  complaint  of  the  document.  This 
insists  that  the  English  authorities  "  interfered  to  set  free  the  slaves." 
I  reply  that  the  authorities  did  not  and  could  not  set  the  colored  men 
free,  and  for  the  plain  reason,  that  they  were  in  no  sense  slaves  in  the 
British  port.  The  authorities  found  them  in  the  first  instance  both 
legally  and  actually  free.  How,  then,  could  they  be  liberated  ?  They 
stood  before  the  magistrates  free  at  the  first  moment.  They  had 
passed  beyond  the  legislation  of  the  state  which  had  imposed  their 
chains.  They  had  come  under  a  jurisdiction  which  knew  nothing  of 
the  property  in  man,  nothing  of  the  relation  of  master  and  slave.  As 
soon  as  they  entered  the  British  waters  the  legal  power  of  the  captain 
over  them,  whatever  it  might  have  been,  ceased.  They  were  virtually 
"'  beyond  his  reach,"  even  whilst  on  board.  Of  course,  no  act  of  the 
authorities  was  needed  for  their  liberation. 

But  this  is  not  all  The  colored  men  were  not  only  legally  free  on 
entering  the  British  port  they  were  so  actually  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact.  The  British  authorities  had  not  the  merit  of  exerting  the  least 
physical  power  to  secure  to  them  their  right  to  liberty.  The  slaves 
had  liberated  themselves.  They  had  imprisoned  the  captain.  They 
had  taken  command  of  the  vessel.  The  British  authorities  interfered 
to  liberate,  not  the  colored  people,  but  the  captain;  not  to  uphold,  but 
arrest,  the  *'  mutineers."  Their  action  was  friendly  to  the  officers  and 
crew.  In  all  this  action,  however,  they  did  nothing,  of  course,  to  re 
duce  the  slaves  a  second  time  to  bondage.  Had  they,  in  restoring  the 
vessel  to  the  captain,  replaced,  directly  or  indirectly,  the  liberated 
slaves  under  the  yoke,  they  would  have  done  so  at  their  peril.  How, 
thcnv  could  they  free  those  whom  they  knew  only  as  free?  They 


466  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

simply  declared  them  free,  declared  a  matter  of  fact  which  could  not 
be  gainsaid.  If  they  persuaded  them  to  leave  the  ship,  they  plainly 
acted  in  this  as  counsellors  and  friends,  and  exerted  no  official 
power. 

It  is  said,  indeed,  in  the  protest,  that  the  magistrates  "  commanded  " 
the  slaves  to  go  on  shore.  If  this  be  true,  and  if  the  command  were 
accompanied  with  any  force,  they  indeed  committed  a  wrong;  but  one, 
I  fear,  for  which  our  government  will  be  slow  to  seek  redress.  They 
wronged  the  liberated  slaves.  These  were  free,  and  owed  no  obedi 
ence  to  such  command.  They  had  a  right  to  stay  where  they  were; 
a  right  to  return  to  America;  and  in  being  compelled  to  go  on  shore 
they  received  an  injury  for  which  our  government,  if  so  disposed,  may 
make  complaint.  But  the  slaves  alone  were  the  injured  party.  The 
right  of  the  owner  was  not  violated,  for  he  had  no  right.  His  claim 
was  a  nullity  in  the  British  port.  He  was  not  known  there.  The  law 
on  which  he  stood  in  his  own  country  was  there  a  dead  letter.  Who 
can  found  on  it  a  complaint  against  the  British  government  ? 

It  is  said  that  the  "  comity  of  nations"  forbade  this  interference. 
But  this  comity  is  a  vague,  unsettled  law,  and  ought  not  to  come  into 
competition  with  the  obligations  of  a  state  to  injured  men  thrown  on 
its  protection,  and  whose  lives  and  liberties  are  at  stake.  We  must 
wait,  however,  for  farther  light  from  Nassau,  to  comprehend  the 
whole  case  It  is  not  impossible  that  the  authorities  at  that  port  ex 
erted  an  undue  influence  and  took  on  themselves  an  undue  responsi 
bility.  Among  the  liberated  slaves  there  were  undoubtedly  not  a  few 
so  ignorant  and  helpless  as  to  be  poorly  fitted  to  seek  their  fortune  in 
the  West  Indies,  among  strangers  little  disposed  to  sympathize  with 
their  sufferings  or  aid  their  inexperience.  These  ought  to  have  been 
assured  of  their  liberty;  but  they  should  have  been  left  to  follow,  with 
out  any  kind  of  resistance,  their  shrinking  from  an  unknown  shore, 
and  their  desire  to  return  to  the  land  of  their  birth,  whenever  these 
feelings  were  expressed. 

I  know  not  that  I  have  overlooked  any  of  the  considerations  which 
are  urged  in  the  executive  document  in  support  of  our  complaints 
against  Great  Britian  in  the  case  of  the  Creole.  I  have  labored  to 
understand  and  meet  their  full  force.  I  am  sorry  to  have  been  obliged 
to  enter  into  these  so  minutely,  and  to  repeat  what  I  deem  true  prin 
ciples  so  often.  But  the  necessity  was  laid  on  me.  The  document 
does  not  lay  down  explicitly  any  great  principle  with  which  our  claim 
must  stand  or  fall.  Its  strength  lies  in  the  skilful  suggestion  of  various 
circumstances  which  strike  the  common  reader,  and  which  must  succes 
sively  be  examined,  to  show  their  insufficiency  to.  the  end  for  which 
they  are  adduced.  It  is  possible,  however,  to  give  something  of  a 
general  form  to  the  opinions  expressed  in  it,  and  to  detect  under  these 
a  general  principle.  This  I  shall  proceed  to  do,  as  necessary  to  the 
full  comprehension  of  this  paper.  The  opinions  scattered  through  the 


U'lLUAM  ELLERY   CIIAXXING.  467 

document  may  be  thus  expressed: — "  Slaves,  pronounced  to  be  prop 
erty  by  American  law,  and  shipped  as  such,  ought  to  be  so  regarded 
by  a  foreign  government  on  whose  shores  they  may  be  thrown.  This 
government  is  bound  to  regard  the  national  stamp  set  on  them.  It 
has  no  right  to  inquire  into  the  condition  of  these  persons.  It  can 
not  give  to  them  the  character  or  privileges  of  the  country  to  which 
they  are  carried.  Suppose  a  government  to  have  declared  opium  a 
thing  in  which  no  property  can  lawfully  exist  or  be  asserted.  Would 
it,  therefore,  have  a  right  to  take  the  character  of  property  from 
opium,  when  driven  in  a  foreign  ship  into  its  ports',  and  to  cast 
it  into  the  sea  ?  Certainly  not.  Neither,  because  it  declares 
that  men  cannot  be  property,  can  it  take  this  character  from  slaves, 
when  they  are  driven  into  its  ports  from  a  country  which  makes  them 
property  by  its  laws.  They  still  belong  to  the  distant  claimant;  his 
right  must  not  be  questioned  or  disturbed;  and  he  must  be  aided  in 
holding  them  in  bondage,  if  his  power  over  them  is  endangered  by  dis 
tress  or  mutiny."  Such  are  the  opinions  of  the  document,  in  a  con 
densed  form,  and  they  involve  one  great  principle,  namely  this:  that 
property  is  an  arbitrary  thing,  created  by  governments:  that  a  gov 
ernment  may  make  anything  property  at  its  will;  and  that  what  its 
citizens  or  subjects  hold  as  property,  under  this  sanction,  must  be  re 
garded  as  such,  without  inquiry,  by  the  civilized  world.  According  to 
the  document,  a  nation  may  attach  the  character  of  property  to  whatever 
it  pleases;  may  attach  it  alike  to  men  and  women,  beef  and  pork,  cotton 
and  rice;  and  other  nations,  into  whose  ports  its  vessels  may  pass,  are 
bound  to  respect  its  laws  in  these  particulars,  and  in  case  of  distress 
to  assist  in  enforcing  them.  Let  our  country,  through  its  established 
government,  declare  our  fathers  or  mothers,  sons  or  daughters,  to  be 
property;  and  they  become  such,  and  the  right  of  the  master  must 
not  be  questioned  at  home  or  abroad. 

Now  this  doctrine,  stated  in  plain  language,  needs  no  labored  ref 
utation;  it  is  disproved  by  the  immediate  testimony  of  conscience  and 
common  sense.  Property  is  not  an  arbitrary  thing,  dependent  wholly 
on  man's  will.  It  has  its  foundation  and  great  laws  in  nature,  and 
those  cannot  be  violated  without  crime.  It  is  plainly  the  intention  of 
Providence  that  certain  things  should  be  owned,  should  be  held  as 
property.  They  fulfil  their  end  only  by  such  appropriation.  The  ma 
terial  world  was  plainly  made  to  be  subjected  to  human  labor,  and  its 
products  to  be  moulded  by  skill  to  human  use.  He  who  wins  them  by 
honest  toil,  has  a  right  to  them,  and  is  wronged  when  others  seize  and 
consume  them.  The  document  supposes  a  government  to  declare 
that  opium  is  an  article  in  which  property  cannot  exist  or  be  asserted, 
and  on  this  ground  to  wrest  it  from  the  owner  and  throw  it  into  the 
sea  ;  and  this  it  considers  a  parallel  case  to  the  declaration  that 
property  in  man  cannot  exist.  But  who  does  not  see  that  the  parallel 
is  absurd  ?  The  poppy,  which  contains  the  opium,  is  by  its  nature 


463  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

fitted  and  designed  to  be  held  as  property.  The  man  who  rears  it 
by  his  capital,  industry,  and  skill,  thus  establishes  a  right  to  it,  and  is 
injured  if  ic  be  torn  from  him,  except  in  the  special  case  where  some 
higher  right  supersedes  that  of  property.  The  poppy  is  not  wronged 
by  being  owned  and  consumed.  It  has  no  intelligence,  no  conscience 
for  its  own  direction,  no  destiny  to  fulfil  by  the  wise  use  and  culture  of 
its  powers.  It  has  therefore  no  rights.  By  being  appropriated  to  an 
individual  it  does  good,  it  suffers  no  wrong. 

Here  are  the  grounds  of  property.  They  are  found  in  the  nature 
of  the  article  so  used;  and  where  these  grounds  are  wholly  wanting, 
as  in  the  case  of  human  beings,  it  cannot  exist  or  be  asserted.  A  man 
was  made  to  be  an  owner,  not  to  be  owned;  to  acquire,  not  to  become 
property.  He  has  faculties  for  the  government  of  himself.  He  has  a 
great  destiny.  He  sustains  tender  and  sacred  relations,  especially 
those  of  parent  and  husband,  and  with  the  duties  and  blessings  of  these 
no  one  must  interfere.  As  such  a  being,  he  has  rights.  These  be 
long  to  his  very  nature.  They  belong  to  every  one  who  partakes  it; 
all  here  are  equal.  He  therefore  may  be  wronged,  and  is  most  griev 
ously  wronged,  when  forcibly  seized  by  a  fellow-creature,  who  has  no 
other  nature  and  rights  than  his  own,  and  seized  by  such  a  one  to  live 
for  his  pleasure,  to  be  bowed  to  his  absolute  will,  to  be  placed  under 
his  lash,  to  be  sold,  driven  from  home,  and  torn  from  parent,  wife, 
and  child,  for  another's  gain.  Does  any  parallel  exist  between  such  a 
being  and  opium  ?  Can  we  help  seeing  a  distinction  between  the 
nature  of  a  plant  and  a  man  which  forbids  their  being  confounded 
under  the  same  character  of  property?  Is  not  the  distinction  recog 
nized  by  us  in  the  administration  of  our  la\vs  ?  When  a  man  from 
the  South  brings  hither  his  watch  and  trunk,  is  his  right  to  them 
deemed  a  whit  the  less  sacred  because  the  laws  of  his  state  cease  to 
protect  them  ?  Do  we  not  recognize  them  as  his,  as  intuitively  and 
cheerfully  as  if  they  belong  to  a  citizen  of  our  own  state  ?  Are  they 
not  his,  here  and  everywhere  ?  Do  we  not  feel  that  he  would  be 
wronged  were  they  torn  from  him  ?  But  when  he  brings  a  slave,  we 
do  not  recognize  his  property  in  our  fellow-creature.  We  pronounce 
the  slave  free.  Whose  reason  and  conscience  do  not  intuitively  pro 
nounce  this  distinction  between  a  man  and  a  watch  to  be  just  ? 

It  may  be  urged,  however,  that  this  is  a  distinction  for  moralists, 
not  for  governments;  that  if  a  government  establishes  property,  how 
ever  unjustly,  in  human  beings,  this  is  its  own  concern,  and  the  con 
cern  of  no  other;  and  that  articles  on  board  its  vessels  must  be 
recognized  by  other  nations  as  what  it  declares  them  to  be  without  any 
question  as  to  the  morality  or  fitness  of  its  measures.  One  nation,  \ve 
are  told,  is  not  to  interfere  with  another.  I  need  not  repeat,  in  reply, 
what  I  have  so  often  said,  that  a  government  hos  solemn  duties  to 
wards  every  human  being  entering  its  ports,  duties  which  no  local 
law  about  property  in  another  country  can  in  any  degree  impair.  I 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANN1NG.  469 

would  only  say,  that  a  government  is  not  bound  in  all  possible  cases  to 
respect  the  stamps  put  by  another  government  on  articles  transported 
in  the  vessels  of  the  latter.  The  comity  of  nations  supposes  that  in 
all  such  transactions  respect  is  paid  to  common  sense  and  common 
justice.  Suppose  a  government  to  declare  cotton  to  be  horses,  to 
write  "  horse"  on  all  the  bales  within  its  limits,  and  to  set  these  down 
as  horses  in  its  custom-house  papers;  and  suppose  a  cargo  of  these  to 
enter  a  port  where  the  importation  of  cotton  is  forbidden.  Will 
the  comity  of  nations  forbid  the  foreign  nation  to  question  the  char 
acter  which  has  been  affixed  by  law  to  the  bales  in  the  country  to 
which  they  belong?  Can  a  law  change  the  nature  of  things,  in  the  in 
tercourse  of  nations  ?  Must  officers  be  stone-blind  through  "  comity?" 
Would  it  avail  anything  to  say,  that,  by  an  old  domestic  institution  in 
the  exporting  country,  cotton  was  pronounced  horse,  and  that  such  in 
stitution  must  not  be  interfered  with  by  foreigners  ?  Now,  in  the  es 
timation  of  England  and  of  sound  morality,  it  is  as  hard  to  turn  man 
into  property  as  horses  into  cotton,  and  this  estimation  England  has 
embodied  in  its  laws.  Can  we  expect  such  a  country  to  reverence  the 
stamp  of  property  on  men,  because  attached  to  them  by  a  foreign  land? 

The  executive  document  not  only  maintains  the  obligation  of  the 
English  authorities  to  respect  what  the  South  had  stamped  on  the 
slave,  but  maintains  earnestly  that  "the  English  authorities  had  no 
right  to  inquire  into  the  cargo  of  the  vessel,  or  the  condition  of 
persons  on  board."  Now  it  is  unnecessary  to  dispute,  about  this 
right;  for  the  British  authorities  did  not  exercise  it,  did  not  need 
it,  The  truth  of  the  case,  and  the  whole  truth,  they  could  not  help 
seeing,  even  had  they  wished  to  remain  blind.  Master,  crew,  pass 
engers,  colored  people,  declared  with  one  voice  that  the  latter  were 
shipped  as  slaves.  Their  character  was  thus  forced  on  the  gov 
ernment,  which  of  course  had  no  liberty  of  action  in  the  case.  By 
the  laws  of  England,  slavery  could  not  be  recognized  within  its  juris 
diction.  No  human  being  could  be  recognized  as  property.  The 
authorities  had  but  one  question  to  ask:  Are  these  poor  creatures 
men?  and  to  solve  this  question  no  right  of  search  was  needed.  It 
solved  itself.  A  single  glance  settled  the  point.  Of  course  we  have 
no  ground  to  complain  of  a  busy  intermeddling  with  cargo  and  persons, 
to  determine  their  character,  by  British  authorities. 

I  have  thus  finished  my  examination  of  the  document,  and  shall 
conclude  by  some  general  remarks.  And  first,  I  cannot  but  express 
my  sorrow  at  the  tone  of  inhumanity  which  pervades  it.  I  have  said 
at  the  beginning  that  I  should  make  no  personal  strictures;  and  I  have 
no  thought  of  charging  on  our  Cabinet  any  singular  want  of  human 
feeling.  The  document  bears  witness,  not  to  individual  hardness  of 
heart,  but  to  the  callousness,  the  cruel  insensibility,  which  has  seized  the 
community  at  large.  Our  contact  with  slavery  has  seared  in  a  meas 
ure  almost  all  hearts.  Were  there  a  healthy  tone  of  feeling  among 


470  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

us,  certain  passages  in  this  document  would  call  forth  a  burst  of  dis 
pleasure.  For  example,  what  an  outrage  is  offered  to  humanity  in  in 
stituting  a  comparison  between  man  and  opium,  in  treating  these  as 
having  equal  rights  and  having  equal  sanctity,  in  degrading  an  im 
mortal  child  of  God  to  the  level  of  a  drug,  in  placing  both  equally  at  the 
mercy  of  selfish  legislators  !  To  an  unsophisticated  man  there  is  not 
only  inhumanity,  but  irreligion,  in  thus  treating  a  being  made  in  the 
image  of  God  and  infinitely  dear  to  the  Universal  Father. 

In  the  same  tone,  the  slaves,  who  regained  their  freedom  by  a 
struggle  which  cost  the  life  of  a  white  man,  and  by  which  one  of  their 
own  number  perished,  are  set  down  as  "mutineers  and  murderers." 
Be  it  granted  that  their  violence  is  condemned  by  the  Christian  law. 
Be  it  granted  that  the  assertion  of  our  rights  must  not  be  stained  with 
cruelty;  that  it  is  better  for  us  to  die  slaves  than  to  inflict  death  on  our 
oppressor.  But  is  there  a  man,  having  a  manly  spirit,  who  can  with 
hold  all  sympathy  and  admiration  for  men  who,  having  grown  up 
Under  the  blighting  influence  of  slavery,  yet  had  the  courage  to  put  life 
to  hazard  for  liberty  ?  Are  freemen  slow  to  comprehend  and  honor 
the  impulse  which  stirs  men  to  break  an  unjust  and  degrading  chain  ? 
Would  the  laws  of  any  free  state  pronounce  the  taking  of  life  in  such  a 
case  "  murder?"  Because  a  man,  under  coercion,  whilst  on  his  way 
to  a  new  yoke,  and  in  the  act  of  being  carried  by  force  from  wife  and 
children  and  home,  sheds  blood  to  escape  his  oppressor,  is  he  to  be 
confounded  Avith  the  vilest  criminals  ?  Does  a  republic,  whose  heroic 
age  was  the  Revolution  of  1776,  and  whose  illustrious  men  earned 
their  glory  in  a  sanguinary  conflict  for  rights,  find  no  mitigation  of 
this  bloodshed  in  the  greater  wrongs  to  which  the  slave  is  subjected? 
This  letter  would  have  lost  nothing  of  its  force,  it  would  at  least  have 
shown  better  taste,  had  it  consulted  humanity  enough  to  be  silent 
about  "  opium"  and  "murder." 

I  cannot  refrain  from  another  view  of  the  document.  This  declara 
tion  of  national  principles  cannot  be  too  much  lamented  and  disap 
proved  for  the  dishonor  it  has  brought  on  our  country.  It  openly 
arrays  us,  as  a  people,  against  the  cause  of  human  freedom.  It 
throws  us  in  the  way  of  the  progress  of  liberal  principles  through 
the  earth.  The  grand  distinction  of  our  Revolution  was,  that  it  not 
only  secured  the  independence  of  a  single  nation,  but  asserted  the 
rights  of  mankind.  It  gave  to  the  spirit  of  freedom  an  impulse,  which, 
notwithstanding  the  dishonor  cast  on  the  cause  by  the  excesses  of 
France,  is  still  acting  deeply  and  broadly  on  the  civilized  world.  Since 
that  period  a  new  consciousness  of  what  is  due  to  a  human  being  has 
been  working  its  way.  It  has  penetrated  into  despotic  states.  Even 
in  countries  where  the  individual  has  no  constitutional  means  of  con 
trolling  government  personal  liberty  has  a  sacredness  and  protection 
never  known  before.  Among  the  triumphs  of  this  spirit  of  freedom 
and  humanity,  one  of  the  most  signal  is  the  desire  to  put  an  end  to 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING.         ...       471 

slavery.  The  cry  for  emancipation  swells  and  spreads  from  land  to 
land.  And  from  whence  comes  the  opposing  cry  ?  From  St.  Peters- 
burgh  ?  From  Constantinople  ?  From  the  gloomy,  jealous  cabinets 
of  despotism  ?  No;  but  from  republican  America  !  from  that  country 
whose  Declaration  of  Independence  was  an  era  in  human  history  ! 
The  nations  of  the  earth  are  beginning  to  proclaim  that  slaves  shall 
not  breathe  their  air,  that  whoever  touches  their  soil  shall  be  free.  Re 
publican  America  protests  against  this  reverence  for  right  and  human 
ity,  and  summons  the  nations  to  enforce  her  laws  against  the  slave. 
O  my  country  !  hailed  once  as  the  asylum  of  the  oppressed,  once  con 
secrated  to  liberty,  once  a  name  pronounced  with  tears  of  joy  and 
hope  !  now  a  by-word  among  the  nations,  the  scorn  of  the  very  sub 
jects  of  despotism  !  How  art  thou  fallen,  morning-star  of  freedom  ! 
And  has  it  come  to  this  ?  Must  thy  children  blush  to  pronounce  thy 
name  ?  Must  we  cower  in  the  presence  of  the  Christian  world  ?  Must 
we  be  degraded  to  the  lowest  place  among  Christian  nations  ?  Is  the 
sword  which  wrought  out  our  liberties  to  be  unsheathed  now  to  en 
force  the  claims  of  slavery  on  foreign  states  ?  Can  we  bear  this  burn 
ing  shame  ?  Are  the  free  states  prepared  to  incur  this  infamy  and 
crime  ! 

''Slaves  cannot  breathe  in  England."  I  learned  this  line  when  I 
was  a  boy,  and  in  imagination  I  took  flight  to  the  soil  which  could 
never  be  tainted  by  slaves.  Through  the  spirit  which  spoke  in  that 
line  England  has  decreed  that  slaves  cannot  breathe  in  her  islands. 
Ought  we  not  to  rejoice  in  this  new  conquest  of  humanity  ?  Ought  not 
the  tidings  of  it  to  have  been  received  with  beaming  eyes  and  beating 
hearts  ?  Instead  of  this  we  demand  that  humanity  shall  retrace  her 
steps,  and  liberty  resign  her  trophies.  We  call  on  a  great  nation  to 
abandon  its  solemnly  pronounced  conviction  of  duty,  its  solemnly 
pledged  respect  for  human  rights,  and  to  do  what  it  believes  to  be  un 
just,  inhuman  and  base.  Is  there  nothing  of  insult  in  such  a  demand  ? 
This  case  is  no  common  one.  It  is  not  a  question  of  policy,  not  an 
ordinary  diplomatic  concern.  A  whole  people,  from  no  thought  of 
policy,  but  planting  itself  on  the  ground  of  justice  and  of  Christianity, 
sweeps  slavery  from  its  soil,  and  declares  that  no  slave  shall  tread 
there.  This  profound  religious  conviction,  in  which  all  Christian  na 
tions  are  joining  her,  we  come  in  conflict  with,  openly  and  without 
shame.  Is  this  an  enviable  position  fora  country  which  would  respect 
itself  or  be  respected  by  the  world  ?  It  is  idle,  and  worse  than  idle,  to 
say,  as  is  sometimes  said,  that  England  has  no  motive  but  policy  in 
her  movements  about  slavery.  He  who  says  so  talks  ignorantly  or 
recklessly.  I  have  studied  abolitionism  in  England  enough  to  assure 
those  who  have  neglected  it  that  it  was  the  act,  not  of  the  politician, 
but  of  the  people.  In  this  respect  it  stands  alone  in  history.  It  was 
a  disinterested  movement  of  a  Christian  nation  in  behalf  of  oppressed 
strangers,  beginning  with  Christians,  carried  through  by  Christians. 
A.  P.— 1G. 


47 2  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

The  government  resisted  it  for  years.  The  government  was  compelled 
to  yield  to  the  voice  of  the  people.  No  act  of  the  English  nr.tion  was 
ever  so  national,  so  truly  the  people's  act,  as  this.  And  can  we  hope 
to  conquer  the  conscience  as  well  as  the  now  solemnly  adopted  policy 
of  a  great  nation  ?  Were  England  to  concede  this  point,  she  would 
prove  herself  false  to  known,  acknowledged  truth  and  duty.  Her 
freshest,  proudest  laurel  would  wither.  The  toils  and  prayers  of  her 
Wilberforces,  Clarksons,  and  a  host  of  holy  men,  which  now  invoke 
God's  blessings  on  her,  would  be  turned  to  her  reproach  and  shame, 
and  call  down  the  vengeance  of  Heaven. 

In  bearing  this  testimony  to  the  spirit  of  the  English  people  in  the 
abolition  of  the  slave-trade  and  of  slavery,  nothing  is  farther  from  my 
mind  than  a  disposition  to  defend  the  public  policy  or  institutions  of 
that  country.  In  this  case,  as  in  most  others,  the  people  are  better 
than  their  rulers,  England  is  one  of  the  last  countries  of  which  I  am 
ready  to  become  a  partisan.  There  must  be  something  radically  wrong 
in  the  policy,  institutions,  and  spirit  of  a  nation  which  all  other  nations 
regard  with  jealousy  and  dislike.  Great  Britain,  with  all  her  progress 
in  the  arts,  has  not  learned  the  art  of  inspiring  confidence  and  love. 
She  sends  forth  her  bounty  over  the  earth,  but,  politically  considered, 
has  made  the  world  her  foe.  Her  Chinese  war,  and  her  wild  extension 
of  dominion  over  vast  regions  which  she  cannot  rule  well  or  retain, 
give  reason  to  fear  that  she  is  falling  a  prey  to  the  disease  under  which 
great  nations  have  so  often  perished. 

To  a  man  who  looks  with  sympathy  and  brotherly  regard  on  the 
mass  of  the  people,  who  is  chiefly  interested  in  the  "lower  classes," 
England  must  present  much  which  is  repulsive.  Though  a  monarchy 
in  name,  she  is  an  aristocracy  in  fact;  and  an  aristocratical  caste, 
however  adorned  by  private  virtue,  can  hardly  help  sinking  an  infinite 
chasm  between  itself  and  the  multitude  of  men.  A  privileged  order, 
possessing  the  chief  power  of  the  state,  cannot  but  rule  in  the  spirit  of 
an  order,  cannot  respect  the  mass  of  the  people,  cannot  feel  that  for 
them  government  chiefly  exists  and  ought  to  be  administered,  and  that 
for  them  the  nobleman  holds  his  rank  as  a  trust.  The  condition  of 
the  lower  orders  at  the  present  moment  is  a  mournful  commentary  oti 
English  institutions  and  civilization.  The  multitude  are  depressed  in 
that  country  to  a  degree  of  ignorance,  want,  and  misery,  which  must 
touch  every  heart  not  made  of  stone.  In  the  civilized  world  there  are 
few  sadder  spectacles  than  the  contrast  now  presented  in  Great  Britain 
of  unbounded  wealth  and  luxury  with  the  starvation  of  thousands  and 
ten  thousands,  crowded  into  cellars  and  dens  without  ventilation  or 
light,  compared  with  which  the  wigwam  of  the  Indian  is  a  palace. 
Misery,  famine,  brutal  degradation,  in  the  neighborhood  and  presence 
of  stately  mansions  which  ring  with  gayety  and  dazzle  with  pomp  and 
unbounded  profusion,  shock  us  as  no  other  wretchedness  does;  and 
this  is  not  an  accidental,  but  an  almost  necessary  effect  of  the  spirit  of 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING.  473 

aristocracy  and  the  spirit  of  trade  acting  intensely  together.  It  is  a 
striking  fact,  that  the  private  charity  of  England,  though  almost  incredi 
ble,  makes  but  little  impression  on  this  mass  of  misery;  thus  teaching 
the  rich  and  titled  to  be  "just  before  being  generous,"  and  not  to  look 
to  private  munificence  as  a  remedy  for  the  evils  of  selfish  institutions. 

Notwithstanding  my  admiration  of  the  course  of  England  in  refer 
ence  to  slavery,  I  see  as  plainly  as  any  the  wrongs  and  miseries  under 
which  her  lower  classes  groan.  I  do  not  on  this  account,  however, 
subscribe  to  a  doctrine  very  common  in  this  country,  that  the  poor 
Chartists  of  England  are  more  to  be  pitied  than  our  slaves.  Ah,  no! 
Misery  is  not  slavery;  and  were  it  greater  than  it  i»,  it  would  afford 
the  slave-holder  no  warrant  for  trampling  on  the  rights  and  the  souls 
of  his  fellow-creatures.  The  Chartist,  depressed  as  he  is,  is  not  a 
slave.  The  blood  would  rush  to  his  cheek,  and  the  spirit  of  a  man 
swell  his  emaciated  form  at  the  suggestion  of  relieving  his  misery  by 
reducing  him  to  bondage,  and  this  sensibility  shows  the  immeasurable 
distance  between  him  and  the  slave.  He  has  rights,  and  knows  them. 
He  pleads  his  own  cause,  and  just  and  good  men  plead  it  for  him. 
According  to  the  best  testimony,  intelligence  is  spreading  among  the 
Chartists;  so  is  temperance;  so  is  self-restraint.  They  feel  themselves 
to  be  men.  Their  wives  and  children  do  not  belong  to  another.  Thcv 
meet  together  for  free  discussion,  and  their  speeches  are  not  wanting 
in  strong  sense  and  strong  expression.  Not  a  few  among  them  have 
seized  on  the  idea  of  the  elevation  of  their  class  by  a  new  intellectual 
and  moral  culture,  and  here  is  a  living  seed,  the  promise  of  immeas 
urable  good.  Shall  such  men,  who  aspire  after  a  better  lot,  and 
among  whom  strong  and  generous  spirits  are  springing  up,  be  con 
founded  with  slaves,  whose  lot  admits  no  change,  who  must  not  speak 
of  wrongs  or  think  of  redress,  whom  it  is  a  crime  to  teach  to  read,  to 
whom  even  the  Bible  is  a  sealed  book,  who  have  no  future,  no  hope 
on  this  side  death? 

I  have  spoken  freely  of  England  ;  yet  I  do  not  forget  our  debt  or  the 
debt  of  the  world  to  her.  She  was  the  mother  of  our  freedom.  She 
has  been  the  bulwark  of  Protestantism.  What  nation  has  been  more 
fruitful  in  great  men,  in  men  of  genius?  What  nation  can  compare 
with  her  in  munificence  ?  What  nation  but  must  now  acknowledge  her 
unrivalled,  greatness?  That  little  island  sways  a  wider  empire  than  the 
Roman,  and  has  a  power  of  blessing  mankind  never  before  conferred  on 
a  people.  Would  to  God  she  could  learn,  what  nation  never  yet 
learned,  so  to  use  power  as  to  inspire  confidence,  not  fear,  so  as  to 
awaken  the  world's  gratitude,  not  its  jealousy  and  revenge  ! 

But  whatever  be  the  claims  of  England  or  of  any  other  state,  I  must 
cling  to  my  own  country  with  strong  preference,  and  cling  to  it  even 
now,  in  this  dark  day,  this  day  of  her  humiliation,  when  she  stands  be 
fore  the  world  branded,  beyond  the  truth,  with  dishonesty,  and,  too 
truly,  with  the  crime  of  resisting  the  progress  of  freedom  on  the  earth, 


474  A  MR  RICA  iV  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

After  all,  she  has  her  glory.  After  all,  in  these  free  states  a  man  is  still 
a  man.  He  knows  his  rights,  he  respects  himself,  and  acknowledges 
the  equal  claim  of  his  brother.  We  have  order  without  the  display  of 
force.  We  have  government  without  soldiers,  spies,  or  the  constant 
presence  of  coercion.  The  rights  of  thought,  of  speech,  of  the  press,  of 
conscience,  of  worship  are  enjoyed  to  the  full  without  violence  or 
dangerous  excess.  We  are  even  distinguished  by  kindliness  and  good 
temper  amidst  this  unbounded  freedom.  The  individual  is  not  lost  in 
the  mass,  but  has  a  consciousness  of  self-subsistence,  and  stands  erect. 
That  character  which  we  call  manliness  is  stamped  on  the  multitude 
here  as  nowhere  else.  No  aristocracy  interferes  with  the  natural  rela 
tions  of  men  to  one  another.  No  hierarchy  weighs  down  the  intellect, 
and  makes  the  church  a  prison  to  the  soul,  from  which  it  ought  to  break 
every  chain.  I  make  no  boast  of  my  country's  progress,  marvellous  as 
it  has  been.  I  feel  deeply  her  defects.  But,  in  the  language  of  Cowper, 
I  can  say  to  her, — 

"  Yet,  being  free,  I  love  thee  ;  for  the  sake 
Of  that  one  feature  can  be  well  content, 
Disgraced  as  thou  hast  been,  poor  as  thou  art, 
To  seek  no  sublunary  rest  beside." 

Our  country  is  free  ;  this  is  its  glory.  How  deeply  to  be  lamented  is 
it  that  this  glory  is  obscured  by  the  presence  of  slavery  in  any  part  of 
our  territory  !  The  distant  foreigner,  to  whom  America  is  a  point,  and 
who  communicates  the  taint  of  a  part  to  the  whole,  hears  with  derision 
our  boast  of  liberty,  and  points  with  a  sneer  to  our  ministers  in  London 
not  ashamed  to  plead  the  rights  of  slavery  before  the  civilized  world. 
He  ought  to  learn  that  America,  which  shrinks  in  his  mind  into  a  nar 
row  unity,  is  a  league  of  sovereignties  stretching  from  the  Bay  of  Fundy 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  destined,  unless  disunited,  to  spread  from 
ocean  to  ocean;  that  a  great  majority  of  its  citizens  hold  no  slaves  ; 
that  a  vast  proportion  of  its  wealth,  commerce,  manufactures,  and  arts 
belongs  to  the  wide  region  not  blighted  by  this  evil ;  that  we  of  the  free 
states  cannot  touch  slavery,  where  it  exists,  with  one  of  our  fingers  ; 
that  it  exists  without  and  against  our  will ;  and  that  our  necessity  is  not 
onr  choice  and  crime.  Still,  the  cloud  hangs  over  us  as  a  people,  the 
only  dark  and  menacing  cloud.  Can  it  not  be  dispersed  ?  Will  not  the 
South,  so  alive  to  honor,  so  ardent  and  fearless,  and  containing  so  many 
elements  of  greatness,  resolve  on  the  destruction  of  what  does  not  profit 
and  cannot  but  degrade  it  ?  Must  slavery  still  continue  to  exist,  a  fire 
brand  at  home  and  our  shame  abroad  ?  Can  we  of  the  free  states 
brook  that  it  should  be  thrust  perpetually  by  our  diplomacy  on  the  r,o- 
tice  of  a  reproving  world?  that  it  should  become  our  distinction  among 
nations?  that  it  should  place  us  behind  all?  Can  we  endure  that  it 
should  control  our  public  councils,  that  it  should  threaten  war,  should 
threaten  to  assert  its  claims  in  the  thunder  of  our  artillery?  Can  we 
endure  that  our  peace  should  be  broken,  our  country  exposed  to  inva- 


WILLIAM  LLOYD   GARRISON.  475 

sion,  our  cities  stormed,  our  fields  ravaged,  our  prosperity  withered, 
our  progress  arrested,  our  sons  slain,  our  homes  turned  into  de 
serts,  not  for  rights,  not  for  liberty,  not  for  a  cause  which  humanity 
smiles  on  and  God  will  bless,  but  to  rivet  chains  on  fellow-crea 
tures,  to  extend  the  law  of  slavery  throughout  the  earth  ?  These  are 
great  questions  for  the  free  states.  The  duties  of  the  free  states  in  rela 
tion  to  slavery  deserve  the  most  serious  regard.  Let  us  implore  Him 
who  was  the  God  of  our  fathers,  and  who  has  shielded  us  in  so  many 
perils,  to  open  our  minds  and  hearts  to  what  is  true  and  just  and  good, 
to  continue  our  union  at  home  and  our  peace  abroad,  and  to  make  our 
country  a  living  witness  to  the  blessings  of  freedom,  of  reverence  for 
right  on  our  own  shores  and  in  our  intercourse  with  all  nations. 


THE  LESSONS  OF   INDEPENDENCE  DAY. 

WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON. 

July  4,  1842. 

I  present  myself  as  the  advocate  of  my  enslaved  countrymen,  at  a 
time  when  their  claims  cannot  be  shuffled  out  of  sight,  and  on  an  oc 
casion  which  entitles  me  to  a  respectful  hearing  in  their  behalf.  If  I 
am  asked  to  prove  their  title  to  liberty,  my  answer  is,  that  the  fourth 
of  July  is  not  a  day  to  be  wasted  in  establishing-  "  self-evident  truths." 
In  the  name  of  the  God  who  has  made  us  of  one  blood,  and  in  whose 
image  we  are  created;  in  the  name  of  the  Messiah,  who  came  to  bind 
up  the  broken-hearted,  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives,  and  the 
opening  of  a  prison  to  them  that  are  bound;  I  demand  the  immediate 
emancipation  of  those  who  are  pining  in  slavery  on  the  American 
soil,  whether  they  are  fattening  for  the  shambles  in  Maryland  and 
Virginia,  or  are  wasting,  as  with  a  pestilent  disease,  on  the  cotton 
and  sugar  plantations  of  Alabama  and  Louisiana;  whether  they  are 
male  or  female,  young  or  old,  vigorous  or  infirm.  I  make  this  de 
mand,  not  for  the  children  merely,  but  the  parents  also;  not  for  one, 
but  for  all;  not  with  restrictions  and  limitations,  but  unconditionally. 
I  assert  their  perfect  equality  with  ourselves,  as  a  part  of  the  human 
race,  and  their  inalienable  right  to  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 
That  this  demand  is  founded  in  justice,  and  is  therefore  irresistible, 
the  whole  nation  is  this  day  acknowledging,  as  upon  oath  at  the  bar  of 
the  world.  And  not  until,  by  a  formal  vote,  the  people  repudiate  the 
declaration  of  independence  as  a  false  and  dangerous  instrument,  and 
cease  to  keep  this  festival  in  honor  of  liberty,  as  unworthy  of  note  or 
remembrance;  not  until  they  spike  every  cannon,  and  muffle  every 
bell,  and  disband  every  procession,  and  quench  every  bonfire,  and 
gag  every  orator;  not  until  they  brand  Washington,  and  Adams,  and 


476       -  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

Jefferson,  and  Hancock,  as  fanatics  and  madmen;  not  until  they  place 
themselves  again  in  the  condition  of  colonial  subserviency  to  Great 
Britain,  or  transform  this  republic  into  an  imperial  government;  not 
until  they  cease  pointing  exultingly  to  Bunker  Hill,  and  the  plains  of 
Concord  and  Lexington;  not,  in  fine,  until  they  deny  the  authority  of 
God,  and  proclaim  themselves  to  be  destitute  of  principle  and  hu 
manity,  will  I  argue  the  question,  as  one  of  doubtful  disputation,  on 
an  occasion  like  this,  whether  our  slaves  are  entitled  to  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  freemen.  That  question  is  settled  irrevocably.  There  is 
no  man  to  be  found,  unless  he  has  a  brow  of  brass  and  a  heart  of 
stone,  who  will  dare  to  contest  it  on  a  day  like  this.  A  state  of  vas 
salage  is  pronounced,  by  universal  acclamation,  to  be  such  as  no  man, 
or  body  of  men,  ought  to  submit  to  for  one  moment.  I  therefore  tell 
the  American  slaves,  that  the  time  for  their  emancipation  is  come; 
that,  their  own  taskmasters  being  witnesses,  they  are  created  equal  to 
the  rest  of  mankind,  and  possess  an  inalienable  right  to  liberty;  and 
that  no  man  has  a  right  to  hold  them  in  bondage.  I  counsel  them  not 
to  fight  for  their  freedom,  both  on  account  of  the  hopelessness  of  the 
effort,  and  because  it  is  rendering  evil  for  evil;  but  I  tell  them,  not 
less  emphatically,  it  is  not  wrong  for  them  to  refuse  to  wear  the  yoke 
of  slavery  any  longer.  Let  them  shed  no  blood — enter  into  no  con 
spiracies — raise  no  murderous  revolts;  but,  whenever  and  wherever 
they  can  break  their  fetters,  God  give  them  courage  to  do  so!  And 
should  they  attempt  to  elope  from  their  house  of  bondage,  and  come 
to  the  north,  may  each  of  them  find  a  covert  from  the  search  of  the 
spoiler,  and  an  invincible  public  sentiment  to  shield  them  from  the 
grasp  of  the  kidnapper!  Success  attend  them  in  their  flight  to  Canada, 
to  touch  whose  monarchical  soil  insures  freedom  to  every  republican 
slave! 

Is  this  preaching  sedition  ?  Sedition  against  what?  Not  the  lives 
of  the  Southern  oppressors  for — I  renew  the  solemn  injunction,  "  Shed 
no  blood!" — but  against  unlawful  authority,  and  barbarous  usage,  and 
unrequited  toil.  If  slave-holders  are  still  obstinately  bent  upon  plun 
dering  and  starving  their  long-suffering  victims,  why,  let  them  look 
well  to  consequences!  To  save  them  from  danger,  I  am  not  obligated 
to  suppress  the  truth,  or  to  stop  proclaiming  liberty  "  throughout  all  the 
land,  unto  all  the  inhabitants  thereof."  No,  indeed.  There  are  two 
important  truths,  which,  as  far  as  practicable,  I  mean  every  slave 
shall  be  made  to  understand.  The  first  is,  that  he  has  a  right  to  his 
freedom  now;  the  other  is,  that  this  is  recognized  as  a  self-evident 
truth  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Sedition,  forsooth!  Why, 
what  are  the  American  people  doing  this  day  ?  In  theory,  maintain 
ing  the  freedom  and  equality  of  the  human  race;  and  in  practice,  de 
claring  that  all  tyrants  ought  to  be  extirpated  from  the  face  of  the 
earth  !  We  are  giving  to  our  slaves  the  following  easy  sums  for  solu- 
tien  : — If  the  principle  involved  in  a  threepenny  tax  on  tea  justified  a 


WILLIAM  LLOYD   GARRISON'.  477 

seven  years'  war,  how  much  blood  may  be  lawfully  spilt  in  resisting 
the  principle,  that  one  human  being  has  a  right  to  the  body  and  soul 
of  another,  on  account  of  the  color  of  his  skin?  Again,  If  the  im 
pressment  of  six  thousand  American  seamen,  by  Great  Britain,  fur 
nished  sufficient  cause  for  a  bloody  struggle  with  that  nation,  and  the 
sacrifice  of  hundreds  of  millions  of  capital,  in  self-defence,  how  many 
lives  may  be  taken,  by  way  of  retribution,  on  account  of  the  enslave 
ment,  as  chattels,  of  more  than  two  millions  of  American  laborers  ? 

Oppression  and  insurrection  go  hand  in  hand,  as  cause  and  effect 
are  allied  together.  In  what  age  of  the  world  have  tyrants  reigned 
with  impunity,  or  the  victims  of  tyranny  not  resisted  unto  blood  ?  Be 
sides  our  own  grand  insurrection  against  the  authority  of  the  mother 
country,  there  have  been  many  insurrections,  during  the  last  two 
hundred  years,  in  various  sections  of  the  land,  on  the  part  of  the  vic 
tims  of  our  tyranny,  but  without  the  success  that  attended  our  own 
struggle.  The  last  was  the  memorable  one  in  Southampton,  Vir 
ginia,  headed  by  a  black  patriot,  nicknamed,  in  the  contemptuous  no 
menclature  'of  slavery,  Nat  Turner.  The  name  does  not  strike  the  ear 
so  harmoniously  as  that  of  Washington,  or  Lafayette,  or  Hancock,  or 
Warren;  but  the  name  is  nothing.  It  is  not  in  the  power  of  all  the 
slave-holders  upon  earth,  to  render  odious  the  memory  of  that  sable 
chieftain.  "  Resistance  to  tyrants  is  obedience  to  God,"  was  our  revo 
lutionary  motto.  We  acted  upon  that  motto — what  more  did  Nat 
Turner?  Says  George  McDuffie,  "A  people  who  deliberately  submit 
to  oppression,  with  a  full  knowledge  that  they  are  oppressed,  are  fit 
only  to  be  slaves.  No  tyrant  ever  made  a  slave — no  community,  how 
ever  small,  having  the  spirit  of  freemen,  ever  yet  had  a  master.  It 
does  not  belong  to  men  to  count  the  costs,  and  calculate  the  hazards 
of  vindicating  their  rights,  and  defending  their  liberties."  So  reasoned 
Nat  Turner,  and  acted  accordingly.  Was  he  a  patriot,  or  a  monster  ? 
Do  we  mean  to  say  to  the  oppressed  of  all  nations,  in  the  62d  year 
of  our  independence,  and  on  the  4th  of  July,  that  our  example  in  1776 
was  a  bad  one,  and  ought  not  to  be  followed  ?  As  a  Christian  non 
resident,  I,  for  one,  am  prepared  to  say  so;  but  are  the  people  ready 
to  say,  no  chains  ought  to  be  broken  by  the  hand  of  violence,  and  no 
blood  spilt  in  defence  of  inalienable  human  rights,  in  any  quarter  of 
the  globe  ?  If  not,  then  our  slaves  will  peradventure  take  us  at  our 
word,  and  there  will  be  given  unto  us  blood  to  drink,  for  we  are 
worthy.  Why  accuse  abolitionists  of  stirring  them  up  to  insurrection  ? 
The  charge  is  false;  but  what  if  it  were  true?  If  any  man  has  a  right 
to  fight  for  liberty,  this  right  equally  extends  to  all  men  subjected  to 
bondage.  In  claiming  this  right  for  themselves,  the  American  people 
necessarily  concede  it  to  all  mankind.  If,  therefore,  they  are  found 
tyrannizing  over  any  part  of  the  human  race,  they  voluntarily  seal 
their  own  death-warrant,  and  confess  that  they  deserve  to  perish. 


47 8  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

"  What  are  the  banners  ye  exalt  ?— the  deeds 

That  raised  your  fathers'  pyramid  of  fame  ? 
Ye  show  the  wound  that  still  in  history  bleeds, 

And  talk  exulting  of  the  patriot's  name — 
Then,  when  your  words  have  wraked  a  kindred  flame 

And  slaves  behold  the  freedom  ye  adore, 
And  deeper  feel  their  sorrow  and  their  shame, 

Ye  double  all  the  fetters  that  they  wore, 
And  press  them  down  to  earth,  till  hope  exults  no  more  !" 

But,  it  seems,  abolitionists  have  the  audacity  to  tell  the  slaves,  not 
only  of  their  rights,  but  also  of  their  wrongs  !  That  must  be  a  rare 
piece  of  information  to  them  truly  !  Tell  a  man  who  has  just  had  his 
back  flayed  by  the  lash,  till  a  pool  of  blood  is  at  his  feet,  that  some 
body  has  flogged  him  !  Tell  him  who  wears  an  iron  collar  upon  his 
neck,  and  a  chain  upon  his  heels,  that  his  limbs  are  fettered,  as  if  he 
knew  it  not !  Tell  those  who  receive  no  compensation  for  their  toil, 
that  they  are  unrighteously  defrauded  !  In  spite  of  all  their  whippings, 
and  deprivations,  and  forcible  separations,  like  cattle  in  the  market,  it 
seems  that  the  poor  slaves  realized  a  heaven  of  blissful  ignorance, 
until  their  halcyon  dreams  were  disturbed  by  the  pictorial  representa 
tions  and  exciting  descriptions  of  the  abolitionists  !  What !  have  not 
the  slaves  eyes?  have  they  not  hands,  organs,  dimensions,  senses, 
affections,  passions  ?  Are  they  not  fed  with  the  same  food,  hurt  with 
the  same  weapons,  subject  to  the  same  diseases,  healed  by  the  same 
means,  warmed  and  cooled  by  the  same  winter  and  summer,  as  free 
men  are  ?  "If  we  prick  them,  do  they  not  bleed  ?  if  we  tickle  them, 
do  they  not  laugh?  if  we  poison  them,  do  they  not  die?  and  if  we 
wrong  them,  will  they  not  be  revenged?" 

"  For  the  slaveholders,"  we  are  told,  "  there  is  no  peace,  by  night 
or  day  ;  but  every  moment  is  a  moment  of  alarm,  and  their  enemies 
are  of  their  own  household  !"  It  is  the  hand  of  a  friendly  vindicator, 
moreover,  that  rolls  up  the  curtain  !  What  but  the  most  atrocious 
tyranny  on  the  part  of  the  masters,  and  the  most  terrible  sufferings  on 
the  past  of  the  slaves,  can  account  for  such  alarm,  such  insecurity,  such 
apprehensions  that  "  even  a  more  horrible  catastrophe"  than  that  of 
arson  and  murder  may  transpire  nightly  ?  It  requires  all  the  villany 
that  has  ever  been  charged  upon  Southern  oppressors,  and  all  the 
wretchedness  that  has  ever  been  ascribed  to  the  oppressed,  to  work 
out  so  fearful  a  result ; — and  that  the  statement  is  true,  the  most 
distinguished  slaveholders  have  more  than  once  certified.  That  it 
is  true,  the  entire  code  of  slave  laws — whips  and  yokes  and  fetters — 
the  nightly  patrol — restriction  of  locomotion  on  the  part  of  the  slaves, 
except  with  passes — muskets,  pistols,  and  bowie  knives  in  the  bed 
chambers  during  the  hours  of  rest — the  fear  of  inter-communication  of 
colored  freemen  and  the  slaves — the  prohibition  of  even  alphabetical 
instruction,  under  pains  and  penalties,  to  the  victims  of  wrong — the 
refusal  to  admit  their  testimony  against  persons  of  a  white  com- 


WILLIAM  LLOYD   GARRISON'.  479 

plexion — the  wild  consternation  and  furious  gnashing  of  teeth  exhib 
ited  by  the  chivalric  oppressors,  at  the  sigh1:  of  an  anti-slavery  publi 
cation — the  rewards  offered  for  the  persons  of  abolitionists — the  whip 
ping  of  Dresser,  and  the  murder  of  Lovejoy — the  plundering  of  the 
United  States  mail — the  application  of  lynch  law  to  all  who  are  found 
sympathizing  with  the  slave  population  as  men,  south  of  the  Potomac — 
the  reign  of  mobocracy  in  place  of  constitutional  law — and,  finally,  the 
Pharaoh-like  conduct  of  the  masters,  in  imposing  new  burdens  and 
heavier  fetters  upon  their  down-trodden  vassals — all  these  things,  to 
gether  with  a  long  catalogue  of  others,  prove  that  the  abolitionists 
have  not  "  set  down  aught  in  malice"  against  the  South — that  they 
have  exaggerated  nothing.  They  warn  us,  as  with  miraculous  speech, 
that,  unless  justice  be  speedily  done,  a  bloody  catastrophe  is  to  come, 
which  will  roll  a  gory  tide  of  desolation  through  the  land,  and  may 
peradventure  blot  out  the  memory  of  the  scenes  of  St.  Domingo. 
They  are  the  premonitory  rumblings  of  a  great  earthquake — the  lava 
token  of  a  heaving  volcano  !  God  grant,  that  while  there  is  time  and 
a  way  to  escape,  we  may  give  heed  to  these  signals  of  impending 
retribution  ! 

One  thing  I  know  full  well.  Calumniated,  abhorred,  persecuted  as 
the  abolitionists  have  been,  they  constitute  the  body-guard  of  the 
slaveholders,  not  to  strengthen  their  oppression,  but  to  shield  them 
from  the  vengeance  of  their  slaves. 

Instead  of  seeking JJieirjjgstruction,  abolitionists  are  endeavoring  to 
save  them  from  midnight  conflagration  and  sudden'  death,  by  beseech 
ing  them  to  remove  the  cause  of  insurrection;  and  by  holding  out  to 
their  slaves  the  hope  of  a  peaceful  deliverance.  We  do  not  desire 
that" a'ny  should  perish.  Having  a  conscience  void  of  offence  in  this 
matter,  and  cherishing  a  love  for  our  race  which  is  "without  partiality 
amTwithout  hypocrisy,"  no  impeachment  of  our  motives,  or  assault 
upon  our  character,  can  disturb  the  serenity  of  our  rrimds;  n6f"c"£m 
any  threats  of  violence,  or  prospect  of  suffering,  deter  us  from  our 
purpose.  That  w'e  manifest  a  bad  spirit,  is  not  to  be  decided  on  the 
testimony  of  the  Southern  slave-driver,  or  his  Northern  apologist. 
That  our  philanthropy  is  exclusive,  in  favor  of  but  one  party,  is  not 
proved  by  our  denouncing  the  oppressor,  and  sympathizing  with  his 
victim.  That  we  are  seeking  popularity,  is  not  apparent  from  our  ad 
vocating  an  odious  and  unpopular  cause,  and  vindicating,  at  the  loss 
of  our  reputation,  the  rights  of  a  people  who  are  reckoned  among  the 
offscouring  of  all  things.  That  our  motives  are  not  disinterested, 
they  who  swim  with  the  popular  current,  and  partake  of  the  gains  of 
unrighteousness,  and  plunder  the  laborers  of  their  wages,  are  not 
competent  to  determine.  That  our  language  is  uncharitable  and  un 
christian,  they  who  revile  us  as  madmen,  fanatics,  incendiaries,  trait 
ors,  cut-throats,  etc.,  etc.,  cannot  be  allowed  to  testify.  That  our 
measures  are  violent,  is  not  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that  we  wield 


480       ^  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

no  physical  weapons,  pledge  ourselves  not  to  countenance  insurrec 
tion,  and  present  the  peaceful  front  of  non-resistance  to  those  who  put 
our  lives  in  peril.  That  our  object  is  chimerical  or  unrighteous,  is  not 
substantiated  by  the  fact  of  its  being  commended  by  Almighty  God, 
and  supported  by  his  omnipotence,  as  well  as  approved  by  the  wise 
and  good  in  every  age  and  in  all  countries.  If  the  charge,  so  often 
brought  against  us,  be  true,  that  our  temper  is  rancorous  and  our 
spirit  turbulent,  how  has  it  happened,  that,  during  so  long  a  conflict 
with  slavery,  not  a  single  instance  can  be  found  in  which  an  abolitionist 
has  committed  a  breach  of  the  peace,  or  violated  any  law  of  his  country  ? 
i  If  it  be  true,  that  we  are  not  actuated  by  the  highest  principles  of  rec 
titude,  nor  governed  by  the  spirit  of  forbearance,  I  ask,  once  more, 
how  it  has  come  to  pass,  that  when  our  meetings  have  been  repeatedly 
broken  up  by  lawless  men,  our  property  burnt  in  the  streets,  our 
dwellings  sacked,  our  persons  brutally  assailed,  and  our  lives  put  in 
imminent  peril,  we  have  refused  to  lift  a  finger  in  self-defence,  or  to 
maintain  our  rights  in  the  spirit  of  worldly  patriotism  ? 

Will  it  be  retorted,  that  we  dare  not  resist — that  we  are  cowards  ? 
"|  Cowards  !  no  man  believes  it.  They  are  the  dastards  who  maintain 
*  might  makes  right;  whose  arguments  are  brickbats  and  rotten  eggs; 
\  whose  weapons  are  dirks  and  bowie-knives;  and  whose  code  of  jus- 
|  tice  is  lynch  law.  A  love  of  liberty,  instead  of  unnerving  men, 
1  makes  them  intrepid,  heroic,  invincible.  It  was  so  at  Thermopylae — 
it  was  so  on  Bunker  Hill. 

Who  so  tranquil,  who  so  little  agitated,  in  storm  or  sunshine,  as  the 
abolitionists  ?  But  what  consternation,  what  running  to  and  fro  like 
men  at  their  wits'  end,  what  trepidation,  what  anguish  of  spirit,  on 
the  part  of  their  enemies  !  How  southern  slavemongers  quake  and 
tremble  at  the  faintest  whisperings  of  an  abolitionist  !  For,  truly, 
"the  thief  doth  fear  each  bush  an  officer."  Oh  !  the  great  poet  of 
nature  is  right — 

"  Thrice  is  he  armed  who  hath  his  quarrel  just — 
And  he  but  naked,  though  locked  up  in  steel, 
Whose  conscience  with  injustice  is  corrupt!" 

A  greater  than  Shakespeare  certifies  the  "  wicked  flee  when  no  man,; 
pursueth;  but  the  righteous  are  bold  as  a  lion."  In  this  great  contest1 
of  right  against  wrong,  of  liberty  against  slavery,  who  are  the  wicked, 
if  they  be  not  those  who,  like  vultures  and  vampyres,  are  gorging 
themselves  with  human  blood  ?  if  they  be  not  the  plunderers  of  the 
poor,  the  spoilers  of  the  defenceless,  the  traffickers  in  "slaves  and 
the  souls  of  men  ?"  Who  are  the  cowards,  if  not  those  who  shrink 
from  manly  argumentation,  the  light  of  truth,  the  concussion  of  mind, 
and  a  fair  field  ?  if  not  those  whose  prowess,  stimulated  by  whisky 
potations  or  the  spirit  of  murder,  grows  rampant  as  the  darkness  of 
night  approaches;  whose  shouts  and  yells  are  savage  and  fiend-like; 


WILLIAM  LLOYD   GARRISON.  481 

who  furiously  exclaim:  "  Down  with  free  discussion  !  down  with  the 
liberty  of  the  press  !  down  with  the  right  of  petition  !  down  with  con 
stitutional  law  !"  who  rifle  mail-bags,  throw  types  and  printing  presses 
into  the  river,  burn  public  halls  dedicated  to  "  virtue,  liberty,  and  in 
dependence,"  and  assassinate  the  defenders  of  inalienable  human 
rights  ? 

And  who  are  the  righteous,  in  this  case,  if  they  be  not  those  who 
will  "have  no  fellowship  with  the  unfruitful  works  of  darkness,  but 
rather  reprove  them;"  who  maintain  that  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his 
hire,  that  the  marriage  institution  is  sacred,  that  slavery  is  a  system 
accursed  of  God,  that  tyrants  are  the  enemies  of  mankind,  and  that 
immediate  emancipation  should  be  given  to  all  who  are  pining  in 
bondage  ?  Who  are  the  truly  brave,  if  not  those  who  demand  for 
truth  and  error  alike,  free  speech,  a  free  press,  an  open  arena,  the 
right  of  petition,  and  no  quarter?  If  not  those,  who,  instead  of 
skulking  from  the  light,  stand  forth  in  the  noontide  blaze  of  day,  and 
challenge  their  opponents  to  emerge  from  their  wolf-like  dens,  that, 
by  a  rigid  examination,  it  may  be  seen  who  has  stolen  the  wedge  of 
gold,  in  whose  pocket  are  the  thirty  pieces  of  silver,  and  whose  gar 
ments  are  stained  with  the  blood  of  innocence  ? 

The  charge,  then,  that  we  are  beside  ourselves,  that  we  are  both 
violent  and  cowardly,  is  demonstrated  to  be  false,  in  a  signal  manner. 
I  thank  God,  that  "the  weapons  of  our  warfare  are  not  carnal,"  but 
spiritual.  I  thank  him,  that  by  his  grace,  and  by  our  deep  concern 
for  the  oppressed,  we  have  been  enabled,  in  Christian  magnanimity,  to 
pity  and  pray  for  our  enemies,  and  to  overcome  their  evil  with  good. 
Overcome,  I  say  :  not  merely  suffered  unresistingly,  but  conquered  glo 
riously. 

If  it  must  be  so,  let  the  defenders  of  slavery  still  have  all  the  brick 
bats,  bowie-knives,  and  pistols,  which  the  land  can  furnish  ;  but  let  us 
possess  all  the  arguments,  facts,  warnings,  and  promises  which  insure  the 
final  triumph  of  our  holy  cause. 

Nothing  is  easier  than  for  the  abolitionists,  if  they  were  so  disposed, 
as  it  were  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  to  "cry  havoc  and  let  slip  the  dogs 
of  war,"  and  fill  this  whole  land  with  the  horrors  of  a  civil  and  servile 
commotion.  It  is  only  for  them  to  hoist  but  one  signal,  to  kindle  but  a 
single  torch,  to  give  but  a  single  bugle-call,  and  the  three  millions  of 
colored  victims  of  oppression,  both  bond  and  free,  would  start  up  as  one 
man,  and  make  the  American  soil  drunk  with  the  blood  of  the  slain. 
How  fearful  and  tremendous  is  the  power,  for  good  and  evil,  thus  lodged 
in  their  hands  !  Besides  being  stimulated  by  a  desire  to  redress  the 
wrongs  of  their  enslaved  countrymen,  they  could  plead  in  extenuation 
of  their  conduct  for  resoiting  to  arms  (and  their  plea  would  be  valid, 
according  to  the  theory  and  practice  of  republicanism),  that  they  had 
cruel  wrongs  of  their  own  to  avenge,  and  sacred  rights  to  secure, 
inasmuch  as  they  are  thrust  out  beyond  the  pale  of  the  Constitution, 


4§ 2  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

excluded  from  one  half  of  the  Union  by  the  fiat  of  the  lynch  code,  de 
prived  of  the  protection  of  the  law,  and  branded  as  traitors,  because 
they  dare  to  assert  that  God  wills  all  men  to  be  free  !  Now,  I  frankly 
put  it  to  the  understandings  of  Southern  men,  whether,  in  view  of  these 
considerations,  it  is  adding  any  thing  to  their  safety,  or  postponing  the 
much  dreaded  catastrophe  a  single  hour, — whether,  in  fact,  it  is  not  in 
creasing  their  peril,  and  rendering  an  early  explosion  more  probable, — 
for  them  to  persevere  in  aggravating  the  condition  of  their  slaves  by 
tightening  their  chains  and  increasing  the  heavy  burdens — or  wreaking 
their  malice  upon  the  free  people  of  color — or  in  adopting  every  base 
ar.d  unlawful  measure  to  wound  the  character,  destroy  the  property, 
and  jeopard  the  lives  of  abolitionists,  and  thus  leaving  no  stone  unturned 
to  inflame  them  to  desperation  ?  All  this,  Southern  men  have  done, 
and  are  still  doing,  as  if  animated  by  an  insane  desire  to  be  destroyed. 

The  abject  of  the  Anti-Slavery  association  is  not  to  destroy  men's 
lives, — despots  though  they  be, — but  to  prevent  the  spilling  of  human 
blood.  It  is  to  enlighten  the  understanding,  arouse  the  conscience, 
affect  the  heart.  We  rely  upon  moral  power  alone  for  success.  The 
ground  upon  which  we  stand  belongs  to  no  sect  or  party — it  is  holy 
ground.  Whatever  else  may  divide  us  in  opinion,  in  this  one  thing 
we  are  agreed — that  slaveholding  is  a  crime  under  all  circumstances, 
and  ought  to  be  immediately  and  unconditionally  abandoned.  We 
enforce  upon  no  man  either  a  political  or  a  religious  test,  as  a  con 
dition  of  membership;  but  at  the  same  time,  we  expect  every  aboli 
tionist  to  carry  out  his  principles  consistently,  impartially,  faithfully, 
in  whatever  station  he  may  be  called  to  act,  or  wherever  conscience 
may  lead  him  to  go.  I  hail  this  union  of  hearts  as  a  bright  omen,  that 
all  is  not  lost.  To  the  slaveholding  South,  it  is  more  terrible  than  a 
military  army  with  banners.  It  is  indeed  a  sublime  spectacle  to  see 
men  forgetting  their  jarring  creeds  and  party  affinities,  and  embracing 
each  other  as  one  and  indivisible,  in  a  struggle  in  behalf  of  our  common 
Christianity  and  our  common  nature.  God  grant  that  no  root  of  bit 
terness  may  spring  up  to  divide  us  asunder  !  "  United  we  stand, 
divided  we  fall  " — and  if  we  fall,  what  remains  for  our  country  but  a 
fearful  looking  for  of  judgment  and  of  fiery  indignation,  that  shall  con 
sume  it  ?  Fail  we  cannot,  if  our  trust  be  in  the  Lord  of  hosts,  and  in 
the  power  of  his  might — not  in  man,  nor  any  body  of  men.  Divided 
we  cannot  be,  if  we  truly  "remember  them  that  are  in  bonds  as  bound 
with  them,"  and  love  our  neighbors  as  ourselves. 

Genuine  abolitionism  is  not  a  hobby t  got  up  for  personal  or  asso 
ciated  aggrandizement;  it  is  not  a  political  ruse;  it  is  not  a  spasm  of 
sympathy,  which  lasts  but  for  a  moment,  leaving  the  system  weak  and 
worn;  it  is  not  a  fever  of  enthusiasm;  it  is  not  the  fruit  of  fanaticism  ; 
it  is  not  a  spirit  of  faction.  It  is  of  heaven,  not  of  men.  It  lives  in 
the  heart  as  a  vital  principle.  It  is  an  essential  part  of  Christianity, 
and  aside  from  it  there  can  be  no  humanity.  Its  scope  is  not  confined 


HENRY  CLAY.  483 

to  the  slave  population  of  the  United  States,  but  embraces  mankind. 
Opposition  cannot  weary  it  out,  force  cannot  put  it  down,  fire  cannot 
consume  it.  It  is  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  who  was  sent  "to  bind  up  the 
broken  hearted,  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives,  and  the  opening  of 
the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound;  to  proclaim  the  acceptable  year 
of  the  Lord,  and  the  day  of  vengeance  of  our  God."  Its  prin 
ciples  are  self-evident,  its  measures  rational,  its  purposes  mer 
ciful  and  just  It  cannot  be  diverted  from  the  path  of  duty,  though 
all  earth  and  hell  oppose;  for  it  is  lifted  far  above  all  earth-born  fear. 
When  it  fairly  takes  possession  of  the  soul,  you  may  trust  the  soul\ 
carrier  anywhere,  that  he  will  not  be  recreant  to  humanity.  In  short,\ 
it  is  a  life,  not  an  impulse — a  quenchless  flame  of  philanthropy,  not  a\ 
transient  spark  of  sentimentalism. 


THE  CONSEQUENCES  OF  SECESSION. 
HENRY  CLAY. 

Senate  Chamber^  Feb.  6,  1850. 

SIR,  This  Union  is  threatened  with  subversion.  I  want,  Mr.  Presi 
dent,  to  take  a  very  rapid  glance  at  the  course  of  public  measures  in 
this  Union  presently.  I  want,  however,  before  I'do  that,  to  ask  the 
Senate  to  look  back  upon  the  career  which  this  country  has  run  since 
the  adoption  of  this  constitution  down  to  the  present  day.  Was  there 
ever  a  nation  upon  which  the  sun  of  heaven  has  shone  that  has  exhib 
ited  so  much  of  prosperity?  At  the  commencement  of  this  Govern 
ment  our  population  amounted  to  about  four  millions;  it  has  now 
reached  upward  of  twenty  millions.  Our  territory  was  limited  chiefly 
and  principally  to  the  border  upon  the  Atlantic  ocean,  and  that  which 
includes  the  southern  shores  of  the  interior  lakes  of  our  country. 

Our  country  now  extends  from  the  northern  provinces  of  Great 
Britain  to  the  Rio  Grande  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  on  one  side,  and 
from  the  Atlantic  ocean  to  the  Pacific  on  the  other  side — the  largest 
extent  of  territory  under  any  government  that  exists  on  the  face  of 
the  earth,  with  only  two  solitary  exceptions.  Our  tonnage,  from  being 
nothing,  has  risen  in  magnitude  and  amount  so  as  to  rival  that  of  the 
nation  who  has  been  proudly  characterized  "the  mistress  of  the 
ocean."  We  have  gone  through  many  wars — wars  too  with  the  very 
nation  from  whom  we  broke  off  in  1776,  as  weak  and  feeble  ccl  ;nies, 
and  asserted  our  independence  as  a  member  of  the  family  of  nations. 
And,  sir,  we  came  out  of  that  struggle,  unequal  as  it  was — armed  as 
she  was  at  all  points,  in  consequence  of  just  having  come  out  of  her 
long  struggles  with  other  European  nations,  and  unarmed  as  we  were 
at  all  points,  in  consequence  of  the  habits  and  nature  of  our  country 


484  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

and  its  institutions — we  came,  I  say,  out  of  that  war  without  any  loss 
of  honor  whatever — we  emerged  from  it  gloriously. 

In  every  Indian  war — and  we  have  been  engaged  in  many  of  them 
— our  armies  have  triumphed;  and  without  speaking  at  all  as  to  the 
causes  of  the  recent  war  with  Mexico,  whether  it  was  right  or  wrong, 
and  abstaining  from  any  expression  of  opinion  as  to  the  justice  or 
propriety  of  the  war,  when  once  commenced  all  must  admit  that, 
with  respect  to  the  gallantry  of  our  armies,  the  glory  of  our  triumphs, 
there  is  no  page  or  pages  of  history  which  record  more  brilliant  suc 
cesses.  With  respect  to  one  commander  of  an  important  portion  of 
our  army  I  need  say  nothing  here;  no  praise  is  necessary  in  behalf  of 
one  who  has  been  elevated  by  the  voice  of  his  country  to  the  highest 
station  she  could  place  him  in,  mainly  on  account  of  his  glorious  mil 
itary  career.  And  of  another,  less  fortunate  in  many  respects  than 
some  other  military  commanders,  I  must  take  the  opportunity  of  say 
ing,  that  for  skill,  for  science,  for  strategy,  for  ability  and  daring  fight 
ing,  for  chivalry  of  individuals  and  of  masses,  that  portion  of  the 
American  army  which  was  conducted  by  the  gallant  Scott,  as  the  chief 
commander,  stands  unrivalled  either  by  the  deeds  of  Cortez  himself, 
or  by  those  of  any  other  commander  in  ancient  or  modern  times. 

Sir,  our  prosperity  is  unbounded — nay,  Mr.  President,  I  sometimes 
fear  that  it  is  in  the  wantonness  of  that  prosperity  that  many  of  the 
threatening  ills  of  the  moment  have  arisen.  Wild  and  erratic  schemes 
have  sprung  up  throughout  the  whole  country,  some  of  which  have 
even  found  their  way  into  legislative  halls;  and  there  is  a  restlessness 
existing  among  us  which  I  fear  will  require  the  chastisement  of  Heaven 
to  bring  us  back  to  a  sense  of  the  immeasurable  benefits  and  bless 
ings  which  have  been  bestowed  upon  us  by  Providence.  At  this  mo 
ment — with  the  exception  of  here  and  there  a  particular  department  in 
the  manufacturing  business  of  the  country — all  is  prosperity  and  peace, 
and  the  nation  is  rich  and  powerful.  Our  country  has  grown  to  a 
magnitude,  to  a  power  and  greatness,  such  as  to  command  the  respect, 
if  it  does  not  awe  the  apprehensions,  of  the  powers  of  the  earth,  with 
whom  we  come  in  contact. 

Sir,  do  I  depict  with  colors  too  lively  the  prosperity  which  has  re 
sulted  to  us  from  the  operations  of  this  Union?  Have  I  exaggerated 
in  any  particular  her  power,  her  prosperity,  or  her  greatness  ?  And 
now,  sir,  let  me  go  a  little  into  detail  with  respect  to  sway  in  the  coun 
cils  of  the  nation,  whether  from  the  North  or  the  South,  during  the 
sixty  years  of  unparalleled  prosperity  that  we  have  enjoyed.  During 
the  first  twelve  years  of  the  administration  of  the  government  Northern 
counsels  rather  prevailed;  and  out  of  them  sprang  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  the  assumption  of  the  state  debts,  bounties  to  the  fisheries, 
protection  to  our  domestic  manufactures — I  allude  to  the  act  of  1789 — 
neutrality  in  the  wars  of  Europe;  Jay's  treaty,  the  alien  and  sedition 
laws,  and  war  with  France,  I  do  not  say,  sir,  that  these,  the  leading  and 


CLAY.  485 

prominent  measutes  which  were  adopted  during  the  administrations  of 
Washington  and  the  elder  Adams,  were  carried  exclusively  by  North 
ern  counsels — they  couid  not  have  been—but  mainly  by  the  ascendancy 
which  Northern  counsels  had  obtained  in  the  affairs  of  the  nation.  So, 
sir,  of  the  later  period — for  the  last  fifty  years, 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  Southern  counsels  alone  have  carried  the 
measures  which  I  am  about  to  enumerate.  I  know  they  could  not 
exclusively  have  carried  them,  but  I  say  that  they  have  been  carried 
by  their  preponderating  influence,  with  the  co-operation,  it  is  true — the 
large  co-operation  in  some  instances — of  the  Northern  section  of  the 
Union.  And  what  are  those  measures?  During  that  fifty  years,  or 
nearly  that  period,  in  which  Southern  counsels  have  preponderated,  the 
embargo  and  other  commercial  restrictions  of  non-intercourse  and 
non-importation  were  imposed;  war  with  Great  Britain,  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States  overthrown,  protection  enlarged  and  extended  to  do 
mestic  manufactures — I  allude  to  the  passage  of  the  act  of  1815  or  1816 
— the  Bank  of  the  United  States  re-established,  the  same  bank  put  down, 
re-established  by  Southern  counsels  and  put  down  by  Southern  counsels, 
Louisiana  acquired,  Florida  bought,  Texas  annexed,  war  with  Mexico, 
California  and  other  territories  acquired  from  Mexico  by  conquest  and 
purchase,  protection  superseded,  and  free  trade  established,  Indians 
removed  West  of  the  Mississippi,  and  fifteen  new  states  admitted  into 
the  Union.  It  is  very  possible,  sir,  that  in  this  enumeration  I  may  have 
omitted  some  of  the  important  measures  which  have  been  adopted  dur 
ing  this  later  period  of  time — the  last  fifty  years — but  these  I  believe 
to  be  the  most  prominent  ones. 

Now,  sir,  I  do  not  deduce  from  the  enumeration  of  the  measures 
adopted  by  the  one  side  or  the  other  any  just  cause  of  reproach  either 
upon  one  side  or  the  other;  though  one  side  or  the  other  has  predom 
inated  in  the  two  periods  to  which  I  have  referred.  These  measures 
were,  to  say  the  least,  the  joint  work  of  both  parties,  and  neither  of 
them  have  any  just  cause  to  reproach  the  other.  But,  sir,  I  must  say,  in 
all  kindness  and  sincerity,  that  least  of  all  ought  the  South  to  reproach 
the  North,  when  we  look  at  the  long  list  of  measures  which,  under  her 
sway  in  the  counsels  of  the  nation,  have  been  adopted;  when  we 
reflect  that  even  opposite  doctrines  have  been  from  time  to  time 
advanced  by  her ;  that  the  establishment  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  which  was  done  under  the  administration  of  Mr. 
Madison,  met  with  the  co-operation  of  the  South — I  do  not  say 
the  whole  South — I  do  not,  when  I  speak  of  the  South  or  the 
North,  speak  of  the  entire  South  or  the  entire  North  ;  I  speak  of 
the  prominent  and  larger  proportions  of  Southern  and  Northern  men. 
It  was  during  Mr.  Madison's  administration  that  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  was  established.  My  friend,  whose  sickness — which 
I  very  much  deplore — prevents  us  from  having  his  attendance  upon 
this  occasion  (Mr.  Calhoun),  was  the  chairman  of  the  committee,  and 


486  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

carried  the  measure  through  Congress.  I  voted  for  it  with  all  my 
heart.  Although  I  had  been  instrumental  with  other  Southern  votes 
in  putting  down  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  I  changed  my  opinion 
and  co-operated  in  the  establishment  of  the  bank  of  1816.  The  same 
bank  was  again  put  down  by  Southern  counsels,  with  General  Jackson 
at  their  head,  at  a  later  period.  Again,  with  respect  to  the  policy  of 
protection.  The  South  in  1815 — I  mean  the  prominent  Southern  men, 
the  lamented  Lowndes,  Mr.  Calhoun  and  others — united  in  extending 
a  certain  measure  of  protection  to  domestic  manufactures  as  well  as 
the  North. 

We  find  a  few  years  afterward  the  South  interposing  most  serious 
objections  to  this  policy,  and  one  member  of  the  South,  threatening 
on  that  occasion,  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  or  separation.  Now,  sir, 
let  us  take  another  view  of  the  question — and  I  would  remark  that  all 
these  views  are  brought  forward  not  in  a  spirit  of  reproach,  but  of  con 
ciliation — not  to  provoke,  or  exasperate,  but  to  quiet,  to  produce  har 
mony  and  repose,  if  possible.  What  have  been  the  territorial  acquisi 
tions  made  by  this  country,  and  to  what  interests  have  they  conduced? 
Florida,  where  slavery  exists,  has  been  introduced;  Louisiana,  or  all  the 
most  valuable  part  of  that  state — for  although  there  is  a  large  extent  of 
territory  north  of  the  line  36°  30,  in  point  of  intrinsic  value  and  import 
ance,  I  would  not  give  the  single  state  of  Louisania  for  the  whole  of  it 
— all  Louisania,  I  say,  with  the  exception  of  that  which  lies  north  36°3O, 
including  Oregon,  to  which  we  obtained  title  mainly  on  the  ground 
of  its  being  a  part  of  the  acquisition  of  Louisania;  all  Texas;  all  the 
territories  which  have  been  acquired  by  the  government  of  the  United 
States  during  its  sixty  years  operation  have  been  slave  territories,  the 
theatre  of  slavery,  with  the  exception  that  I  have  mentioned  of  that 
lying  north  of  the  line  36°  30. 

And  here,  in  the  case  of  a  war  made  essentially  by  the  South — 
growing  out  of  the  annexation  of  Texas,  which  was  a  measure  pro 
posed  by  the  South  in  the  councils  of  the  country,  and  which  led  to  the 
war  with  Mexico — I  do  not  say  all  of  the  South,  but  the  major  portion 
of  the  South  pressed  the  annexation  of  Texas  upon  the  country — that 
measure,  as  I  have  said,  led  to  the  war  with  Mexico,  and  the  v/ar  with 
Mexico  led  to  the  acquisition  of  those  territories  which  now  constitute 
the  bone  of  contention  between  the  different  members  of  the  Con 
federacy.  And  now,  sir,  for  the  first  time  after  the  three  great  ac 
quisitions  of  Texas,  Florida  and  Louisiana  have  been  made  and  have 
redounded  to  the  benefit  of  the  South — now,  for  the  first  time,  when 
three  territories  are  attempted  to  be  introduced  without  the  institution 
of  slavery,  I  put  it  to  the  hearts  of  my  countrymen  of  the  South,  if  it  is 
right  to  press  matters  to  the  disastrous  consequences  which  have  been 
indicated  no  longer  ago  than  this  very  morning,  on  the  occasion  of 
the  presentation  of  certain  resolutions — even  extending  to  a  dissolu' 
tion  of  the  Union.  Mr,  President,  I  cannot  believe  it. 


HENR  Y   CLA  Y,  487 

Such  is  the  Union,  and  such  are  the  glorious  fruits  which  are  now 
threatened  with  subversion  and  destruction.  Well,  sir,  the  first  ques 
tion  which  naturally  arises,  is,  supposing  the  Union  to  be  dissolved 
lor  any  of  the  causes  or  grievances  which  are  complained  of,  how  far 
will  dissolution  furnish  a  remedy  for  those  grievances?  If  the  Union 
is  to  be  dissolved  for  any  existing  cause,  it  will  be  because  slavery  is 
interdicted  or  not  allowed  to  be  introduced  into  the  ceded  territories- 
or  because  slavery  is  threatened  to  be  abolished  in  the  District  of  Co 
lumbia;  or  because  fugitive  slaves  are  not  restored,  as  in  my  opinion 
they  ought  to  be,  to  their  masters.  These,  I  believe,  would  be  the 
causes,  if  there  be  any  causes  which  can  lead  to  the  dreadful  event  to 
which  I  have  referred.  Let  us  suppose  the  Union  dissolved;  what 
remedy  does  it,  in  a  severed  state,  furnish  for  the  grievances  com 
plained  of  in  its  united  condition  ?  Will  you  be  able  at  the  South  to 
push  slavery  into  the  ceded  territory  ?  How  are  you  to  do  it,  suppos 
ing  the  North,  or  all  the  states  north  of  the  Potomac,  in  possession  of 
the  navy  and  army  of  the  United  States  ?  Can  you  expect,  I  say, 
under  these  circumstances,  that  if  there  is  a  dissolution  of  the  Union 
you  can  carry  slavery  fntc  California  and  New  Mexico  ?  Sir,  you 
cannot  dream  of  such  an  occurrence. 

If  it  were  abolished  in  the  District  of  Columbia  and  the  Union  v.-ere 
dissolved,  would  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  restore  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia  ?  Is  your  chance  for  the  recovery  of  your  fugitive 
slaves  safer  in  a  state  of  dissolution  or  of  severance  of  the  Union  than 
when  in  the  Union  itself  ?  Why,  sir,  what  is  the  state  of  the  fact  ?  In 
the  Union  you  lose  some  slaves  and  recover  others;  but  here  let  me 
revert  to  a  fact  which  I  ought  to  have  noticed  before,  because  it  is 
highly  creditable  to  the  courts  and  juries  of  the  free  states.  In  every 
instance,  as  far  as  my  information  extends,  in  which  an  appeal  has 
been  made  to  the  courts  of  justice  to  recover  penalties  from  those  who 
have  assisted  in  decoying  slaves  from  their  masters — in  every  instance, 
as  far  as  I  have  heard  the  court  has  asserted  the  rights  of  the  owner, 
and  the  jury  has  promptly  returned  an  adequate  verdict  on  his  behalf. 
Well,  sir,  there  is  then  some  remedy  while  you  are  a  part  of  the 
Union  for  the  recovery  of  your  slaves,  and  some  indemnification  for 
their  loss.  What  would  you  have,  if  the  Union  was  severed  ?  Why, 
the  several  parts  would  be  independent  of  each  other — foreign 
countries — and  slaves  escaping  from  one  to  the  other  would  be 
like  slaves  escaping  from  the  United  States  to  Canada.  There 
would  be  no  right  of  extradition,  no  right  to  demand  your  slaves;  no 
right  to  appeal  to  the  courts  of  justice  to  indemnify  you  for  the  loss 
of  your  slaves.  Where  one  slave  escapes  now  by  running 
away  from  his  master,  hundreds  and  thousands  would  escape  if 
the  Union  were  dissevered — I  care  not  how  or  where  you  run  the  line, 
or  whether  independent  sovereignties  be  established.  Well,  sir,  finally, 
will  you,  in  case  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  be  safer  with  your 


488  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

slaves  within  the  separated  portions  of  the  states  than  you  are  now? 
Mr,  President,  that  they  will  escape  much  more  frequently  from  the 
border  states  no  one  will  deny. 

And,  sir,  I  must  take  occasion  here  to  say  that,  in  my  opinion,  there 
is  no  right  on  the  part  of  any  one  or  more  of  the  states  to  secede  from 
the  Union.  War  and  dissolution  of  the  Union  are  identical  and  in 
evitable,  in  my  opinion.  There  can  be  a  dissolution  of  the  Union 
only  by  consent  or  by  war.  Consent  no  one  can  anticipate,  from  any 
existing  state  of  things,  is  likely  to  be  given,  and  war  is  the  only  alter 
native  by  which  a  dissolution  could  be  accomplished.  If  consent  were 
given — if  it  were  possible  that  we  were  to  be  separated  by  one  great 
line — in  less  than  sixty  days  after  such  consent  was  given  war  would 
break  out  between  the  slaveholding  and  non-slaveholding  portions  of 
this  Union — between  the  two  independent  parts  into  which  it  would  be 
erected  in  virtue  of  the  act  of  separation.  In  less  than  sixty  days,  I 
believe,  our  slaves  from  Kentucky,  flocking  over  in  numbers  to  the 
other  side  of  the  river,  would  be  pursued  by  their  owners.  Our  hot 
and  ardent  spirits  would  be  restrained  by  no  sense  of  the  right  which 
appertains  to  the  independence  of  the  other  side  of  the  river,  should 
that  be  the  line  of  separation.  They  would  pursue  their  slaves  into 
the  ajacent  free  states  ;  they  would  be  repelled,  and  the  consequence 
would  be  that,  in  less  than  sixty  days,  war  would  be  blazing  in  every 
part  of  this  now  happy  and  peaceful  land. 

And,  sir,  how  are  you  going  to  separate  the  states  of  this  Confeder 
acy  ?  In  my  humble  opinion,  Mr.  President,  we  should  begin  with  at 
least  three  separate  Confederacies.  There  would  be  a  Confederacy  of 
the  North,  a  Confederacy  of  the  Southern  Atlantic  slaveholding  states, 
and  a  Confederacy  of  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  My  life  upon  it, 
that  the  vast  population  which  has  already  concentrated  and  will  con 
centrate  on  the  head-waters  and  the  tributaries  of  the  Mississippi  will 
never  give  their  consent  that  the  mouth  of  that  river  shall  be  held 
subject  to  the  power  of  any  foreign  state  or  community  whatever. 
Such,  I  believe,  would  be  the  consequences  of  a  dissolution  of  the 
Union,  immediately  ensuing  ;  bnt  other  Confederacies  would  spring 
up  from  time  to  time,  as  dissatisfaction  and  discontent  were  dissem 
inated  throughout  the  country — the  Confederacy  of  the  lakes,  perhaps 
the  Confederacy  of  New  England,  or  of  the  Middle  States.  Ah,  sir,( 
the  veil  which  covers  these  sad  and  disastrous  events  that  lie  beyond 
it,  is  too  thick  to  be  penetrated  or  lifted  by  any  mortal  eye  or  hand. 

Mr.  President,  I  am  directly  opposed  to  any  purpose  of  secession 
or  separation.  I  am  for  staying  within  the  Union,  and  defying  any 
portion  of  this  Confederacy  to  expel  me  or  drive  me  out  of  the  Union 
I  am  lor  staying  within  the  Union  and  fighting  for  my  rights,  if  neces 
sary,  with  the  sword,  within  the  bounds  and  under  the  safeguard  of  the 
Union.  I  am  for  vindicating  those  rights,  not  by  being  driven  out  of  the 
Union  harshly  and  unceremoniously  by  any  portion  of  this  Cgnfederacy. 


c    ,  ,  IIEXR  Y   CLA  Y.  489 

Here  I  am  within  it,  and  here  I  mean  to  stand  and  die,  as  far  as  my 
individual  wishes  or  purposes  can  go — within  it  to  protect  my  property 
and  defend  myself,  defying  all  the  power  on  earth  to  expel  me  or 
drive  me  from  the  situation  in  which  I  am  placed.  And  would  there 
not  be  more  safety  in  fighting  within  the  Union  than  out  of  it  ?  Sup 
pose  your  rights  to  be  violated,  suppose  wrong  to  be  done  you,  aggrc- 
sions  to  be  perpetrated  upon  you,  can  you  not  better  vindicate  them 
— if  you  have  occasion  to  resort  to  the  last  necessity,  the  sword,  for  a 
restoration  of  those  rights — within,  and  with  the  sympathies  of  a  large 
portion  of  the  population  of  the  Union,  than  by  being  without  the 
Union,  when  a  large  portion  of  the  population  have  sympathies  adverse 
to  your  own  ?  You  can  vindicate  your  rights  writhin  the  Union  better 
than  if  expelled  from  the  Union,  and  driven  from  it  without  ceremony 
and  without  authority. 

Sir,  I  have  said  that  I  thought  there  was  no  right  on  the  part  of 
one  or  more  states  to  secede  from  the  Union.  I  think  so.  The  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States  was  made  not  merely  for  the  generation 
that  then  existed,  but  for  posterity — unlimited,  undefined,  endless, 
perpetual  posterity.  And  every  state  that  then  came  into  the  Union, 
and  every  state  that  has  since  come  into  the  Union,  came  into  it  bind 
ing  itself,  by  indissoluble  bands,  to  remain  within  the  Union  itself, 
and  to  remain  within  it  by  its  posterity  forever.  Like  another  of  the 
sacred  connections,  in  private  life,  it  is  a  marriage  which  no  human 
authority  can  dissolve  or  divorce  the  parties  from.  And  if  I  may  be 
allowed  to  refer  to  some  examples  in  private  life,  let  me  say  to  the 
North  and  to  the  South,  what  husband  and  wife  say  to  each  other: 
We  have  mutual  faults  ;  neither  of  us  is  perfect  ;  nothing  in  the 
form  of  humanity  is  perfect;  let  us,  then,  be  kind  to  each  other — for 
bearing,  forgiving  each  other's  faults — and  above  all,  let  us  live  in 
happiness  and  peace  together. 

Mr.  President,  I  have  said,  what  I  solemnly  believe,  that  dissolution 
of  the  Union  and  war  are  identical  and  inevitable;  that  they  are  con 
vertible  terms;  and  such  a  war  as  it  would  be  following  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union  f  Sir,  we  may  search  the  pages  of  history,  and  none  so 
ferocious,  so  bloody,  so  implacable,  so  exterminating — not  even  the 
wars  of  Greece,  including  those  of  the  Commoners  of  England  and 
the  revolutions  of  France — none,  none  of  them  all  would  rage  with 
such 'violence,  or  be  characterized  with  such  bloodshed  and  enormities 
as  would  the  war  which  must,  succeed,  if  that  event  ever  happens 
the  dissolution  of  the  Union.  And  what  would  be  its  termination  ? 
Standing  armies,  and  navies,  to  an  extent  stretching  the  revenue  of 
each  portion  of  the  dissevered  members,  would  take  place.  An  ex 
terminating  war  would  follow — not,  sir,  a  war  of  two  or  three  years' 
duration,  but  a  war  of  interminable  duration — and  exterminating  wars 
would  ensue  until,  after  the  struggles  and  exhaustion  of  both  parties, 
some  Philip  or  Alexander,  some  Caesar  or  Napoleon,  would  arise  and 


49°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM, 

cut  the  Gordian  knot,  and  solve  the  problem  of  the  capacity  of  man 
for  self-government,  and  crush  the  liberties  of  both  the  severed  portions 
of  this  common  empire.  Can  you  dcubt  it? 

Look  at  all  history — consult  her  pages,  ancient  or  modern — look  at 
human  nature  ;  look  at  the  contest  in  which  you  would  be  engaged  in 
the  supposition  of  war  following  upon  the  dissolution  of  the  Union, 
such  as  I  have  suggested  ;  and  I  ask  you  if  it  is  possible  for  you 
to  doubt  that  the  final  disposition  of  the  whole  would  be  some 
despot  treading  down  the  liberties  of  the  people — the  final  result 
would  be  the  extinction  of  this  last  and  glorious  light  which  is  leading 
all  mankind,  who  are  gazing  upon  it,  in  the  hope  and  anxious  expec 
tation  that  the  liberty  which  prevails  here  will  sooner  or  later  be  dif 
fused  throughout  the  whole  of  the  civilized  world.  Sir,  can  you  lightly 
contemplate  these  consequences  ?  Can  you  yield  yourself  to  the  ty- 
i  tnny  of  passion,  amid  dangers  which  I  have  depicted  in  colors  far  too 
tame  of  what  the  result  would  be  if  that  direful  event  to  which  I  have 
referred  should  ever  occur?  Sir,  I  implore  gentlemen,  I  adjure  them, 
whether  from  the  South  or  the  North,  by  all  that  they  hold  dear  in 
this  world — by  all  their  love  of  liberty — by  all  their  veneration  for 
their  ancestors — by  all  their  regard  for  posterity — by  all  their  grati 
tude  to  Him  who  has  bestowed  on  them  such  unnumbered  and  count 
less  blessings — by  all  the  duties  which  they  owe  to  mankind — and  by 
all  the  duties  which  they  owe  to  themselves,  to  pause,  solemnly  to 
pause  at  the  edge  of  the  precipice,  before  the  fearful  and  dangerous 
leap  is  taken  into  the  yawning  abyss  below,  from  which  none  who 
ever  take  it  shall  return  in  safety. 

Finally,  Mr.  President,  and  in  conclusion,  I  implore,  as  the  best 
blessing  which  Heaven  can  bestow  upon  me,  upon  earth,  that  if  the 
direful  event  of  the  dissolution  of  this  Union  is  to  happen,  I  shall  not 
survive  to  behold  the  sad  and  heart-rending  spectacle. 


PROTEST  AGAINST  SLAVERY  IN  NEBRASKA  AND  KANSAS. 

CHARLES  SUMNER. 
The    Senate,    May  25,    1854. 

I  hold  in  my  hand,  and  now  present  to  the  Senate,  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  separate  remonstrances,  from  clergymen  of  every 
Protestant  denomination  in  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Mas 
sachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  Connecticut,  constituting  the  six  New 
England  States. 

With  pleasure  and  pride  I  now  do  this  service,  and  at  this  last  stage 
interpose  the  sanctity  of  the  pulpits  of  New  England  to  arrest  an 
alarming  outrage— believing  that  the  remonstrants,  from  their  cmin- 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  491 

ent  character  and  influence  as  representatives  of  the  intelligence  and 
conscience  of  the  country,  are  peculiarly  entitled  to  be  heard, — and, 
further,  believing  that  their  remonstrances,  while  respectful  in  form, 
embody  just  conclusions,  both  of  opinion  and  fact.  Like  them,  sir,  I 
do  not  hesitate  to  protest  against  the  bill  yet  pending  before  the 
Senate,  as  a  great  moral  wrong,  as  a  breach  of  public  faith,  as  a 
measure  full  of  danger  to  the  peace,  and  even  existence  of  our  Union. 
And,  sir,  believing  in  God,  as  I  profoundly  do,  I  cannot  doubt  that 
the  opening  of  an  immense  region  to  so  great  an  enormity  as  slavery 
is  calculated  to  draw  down  upon  our  country  his  righteous  judg 
ments. 

"In  the  name  of  Almighty  God,  and  in  his  presence,"  these  remon 
strants  protest  against  the  Nebraska  Bill.  In  this  solemn  language, 
most  strangely  pronounced  blasphemous  on  this  floor,  there  is  obvi 
ously  no  assumption  of  ecclesiastical  power,  as  is  perversely  charged, 
but  simply  a  devout  observance  of  the  Scriptural  injunction,  "What 
soever  ye  do,  in  word  or  deed,  do  all  in  the  name  of  the  Lord."  Let 
me  add,  also,  that  these  remonstrants,  in  this  very  language,  have 
followed  the  example  of  the  Senate,  which  at  our  present  session,  has 
ratified  at  least  one  important  treaty  beginning  with  these  precise 
words,  "  In  the  name  of  Almighty  God."  Surely,  if  the  Senate  may 
thus  assume  to  speak,  the  clergy  may  do  likewise,  without  imputation 
of  blasphemy,  or  any  just  criticism,  at  least  in  this  body. 

I  am  unwilling,  particularly  at  this  time,  to  be  betrayed  into  anything 
like  a  defence  of  the  clergy.  They  need  no  such  thing  at  my  hands. 
There  are  men  in  this  Senate  justly  eminent  for  eloquence,  learning, 
and  ability  ;  but  there  is  no  man  here  competent,  except  in  his  own 
conceit,  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  clergy  of  New  England.  Honorable 
Senators,  so  swift  with  criticism  and  sarcasm,  might  profit  by  their 
example.  Perhaps  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  (Mr.  Butler), 
who  is  not  insensible  to  scholarship,  might  learn  from  them  some 
thing  of  its  graces.  Perhaps  the  Senator  from  Virginia  (Mr.  Mason), 
who  finds  no  sanction  under  the  Constitution  for  any  remonstrance 
from  clergymen,  might  learn  from  them  something  of  the  privileges 
of  an  American  citizen,  And  perhaps  the  Senator  from  Illinois  (Mr. 
Douglas),  who  precipitated  this  odious  measure  upon  the  country, 
might  learn  from  them  something  of  political  wisdom.  Sir,  from  the 
first  settlement  of  these  shores,  from  those  early  days  of  struggle  and 
privation,  through  the  trials  of  the  Revolution,  the  clergy  are  associ 
ated  not  only  with  the  piety  and  the  learning,  but  with  the  liberties  of 
the  country.  New  England  for  a  long  time  was  governed  by  their 
prayers  more  than  by  any  acts  of  the  Legislature  ;  and  at  a  later  day 
their  voices  aided  even  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  The 
clergy  of  our  time  speak,  then,  not  only  from  their  own  virtues,  but 
from  echoes  yet  surviving  in  the  pulpits  of  their  fathers. 

From  myself,  I  desire  to  thank  them  for -their  generous   interposi- 


492  •        AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

tion.  Already  they  have  done  much  good  in  moving  the  country. 
They  will  not  be  idle.  In  the  days  of  the  Revolution,  John  Adams, 
yearning  for  independence,  said,  "Let  the  pulpits  thunder  against 
oppression  !"  And  the  pulpits  thundered.  The  time  has  come  for 
them  to  thunder  again.  So  famous  was  John  Knox  for  power  in 
prayer,  that  Queen  Mary  used  to  say  she  feared  his  prayers  more 
than  all  the  armies  of  Europe.  But  our  clergy  have  prayers  to  be 
feared  by  the  upholders  of  wrong. 

There  are  lessons  taught  by  these  remonstrances,  which,  at  this 
moment,  should  not  pass  unheeded.  The  Senator  from  Ohio  (Mr. 
Wade),  on  the  other  side  of  the  Chamber,  has  openly  declared  that 
Northern  Whigs  can  never  again  combine  with  their  Southern  breth 
ren  in  support  of  slavery.  This  is  a  good  augury.  The  clergy  of 
New  England,  some  of  whom,  forgetful  of  the  traditions  of  other 
days,  once  made  their  pulpits  vocal  for  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill,  now, 
by  the  voices  of  learned  divines,  eminent  bishops,  accomplished  pro 
fessors,  and  faithful  pastors,  uttered  in  solemn  remonstrance,  unite  at 
last  in  putting  a  permanent  brand  upon  this  hateful  wrong.  Surely, 
from  this  time  forward,  they  can  never  more  render  it  any  support. 
Thank  God  for  this  !  Here  is  a  sign  full  of  promise  for  freedom. 

These  remonstrances  have  especial  significance,  when  it  is  urged, 
as  has  been  often  done  in  this  debate,  that  the  proposition  still  pend 
ing  proceeds  from  the  North.  Yes,  sir,  proceeds  from  the  North  ;  for 
that  is  its  excuse  and  apology.  The  ostrich  is  reputed  to  hide  its  head 
in  the  sand,  and  then  vainly  imagine  its  coward  body  beyond  the 
reach  of  pursuers.  In  similar  spirit,  honorable  Senators  seem  to  shel 
ter  themselves  behind  scanty  Northern  votes,  and  then  vainly  imagine 
that  they  are  protected  from  the  judgment  of  the  country.  The  pul 
pits  of  New  England,  representing  in  unprecedented  extent  the  popu 
lar  voice  there,  now  proclaim  that  six  states,  with  all  the  fervor  of 
religious  conviction,  protest  against  your  outrage.  To  this  extent,  at 
least,  I  maintain  it  does  not  come  from  the  North. 

From  these  expressions,  and  other  tokens  which  daily  greet  us,  it  is 
evident  that  at  last  the  religious  sentiment  of  the  country  is  touched, 
and  through  this  sentiment,  I  rejoice  to  believe  that  the  whole  North 
will  be  quickened  with  the  true  life  of  freedom.  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 
speaking  to  Queen  Elizabeth  of  the  spirit  in  the  Netherlands,  anima 
ting  every  man,  woman,  and  child  against  the  Spanish  power, 
exclaimed,  "  It  is  the  spirit  of  the  Lord,  and  is  irresistible."  A  kin 
dred  spirit  now  animates  the  free  spates  against  the  slave  power, 
breathing  everywhere  its  involuntary  inspiration,  and  forbidding 
repose  under  the  attempted  usurpation.  It  is  the  spirit  of  the  Lord, 
and  is  irresistible.  The  threat  of  disunion,  too  often  sounded  in  our 
ears,  will  be  disregarded  by  an  aroused  and  indignant  people.  Ah, 
sir,  Senators  vainly  expect  peace.  Not  in  this  way  can  peace  come. 
In  passing  such  a  bill  as  is  now  threatened,  you  scatter  from  this  dark 


CHARLES  SUMNER.         .  493 

midnight  hour  no  seeds  of  harmony  ar  1  goodwill,  but,  broadcast 
through  the  land,  dragon's  teeth,  which  haply  may  not  spring  up  in 
direful  crops  of  armed  men,  yet,  I  am  assured,  sir,  will  fructify  in 
civil  strife  and  feud. 

From  the  depths  of  my  soul,  as  loyal  citizen  and  as  Senator,  I  plead, 
remonstrate,  protest  against  the  passage  of  this  bill.  I  struggle  against 
it  as  against  death;  but,  as  in  death  itself  corruption  puts  on  incorrup- 
tion,  and  this  mortal  body  puts  on  immortality,  so  from  the  sting  of 
this  hour  I  find  assurance  of  that  triumph  by  which  freedom  will  be 
restored  to  her  immortal  birthright  in  the  Republic. 

Sir,  the  bill  you  are  about  to  pass  is  at  once  the  worst  and  the  best 
on  which  Congress  ever  acted.  Yes,  sir,  worst  and  best  at  the  same 
time. 

It  is  the  worst  bill,  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  present  victory  of  slavery. 
In  a  Christian  land,  and  in  an  age  of  civilization,  a  time-honored  sta 
tute  of  freedom  is  struck  down,  opening  the  way  to  all  the  countless 
woes  and  wrongs  of  human  bondage.  Among  the  crimes  of  history, 
another  is  soon  to  be  recorded,  which  no  tears  can  blot  out,  and  which 
in  better  days  will  be  read  with  universal  shame.  Do  not  start.  The 
Tea  Tax  and  Stamp  Act,  which  roused  the  patriot  rage  of  our  fathers, 
were  virtues  by  the  side  of  your  transgression;  nor  would  it  be  e,asy 
to  imagine,  at  this  day,  any  measure  which  more  openly  and  wantonly 
defied  every  sentiment  of  justice,  humanity,  and  Christianity.  Am  I 
not  right,  then,  in  calling  it  the  worst  bill  on  which  Congress  ever 
acted  ? 

There  is  another  side,  to  which  I  gladly  turn.  Sir,  it  is  the  best  bill 
on  which  Congress  ever  acted,  for  it  annuls  all  past  compromises  with 
slavery,  and  makes  any  future  compromises  impossible.  Thus,  it  puts 
freedom  and  slavery  face  to  face,  and  bids  them  grapple.  Who  can 
doubt  the  result  ?  It  opens  wide  the  door  of  the  future,  when,  at  last, 
there  will  really  be  a  North,  and  the  slave  power  will  be  broken — when 
this  wretched  despotism  will  cease  to  dominate  over  our  government, 
no  longer  impressing  itself  upon  everything  at  home  and  abroad — 
when  the  National  Government  will  be  divorced  in  every  way  from 
slavery,  and,  according  to  the  true  intention  of  our  fathers,  freedom 
will  be  established  by  Congress  everywhere,  at  least  beyond  the  local 
limits  of  the  states. 

Slavery  will  then  be  driven  from  usurped  foothold  here  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia,  in  the  national  territories,  and  elsewhere  beneath 
the  national  flag;  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill,  as  vile  as  it  is  unconstitu 
tional,  will  become  a  dead  letter;  and  the  domestic  slave  trade,  so  far 
as  it  can  be  reached,  but  especially  on  the  high  seas,  will  be  blasted  by 
Congressional  prohibition.  Everywhere  within  the  sphere  of  Congress, 
the  great  Northern  hammer  will  descend  to  smite  the  wrong;  and  the 
irresistible  cry  will  break  forth,  "  No  more  slave  states!" 

Thus,  sir,  standing  at  the  very  grave  of  freedom  in  Nebraska  and 


494  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

— ....  s 

Kansas,  I  lift  myself  to  the  vision  of  that  happy  resurrection  by  which 
freedom  will  be  assured,  not  only  in  these  territories,  but  everywhere 
under  the  national  government.  More  clearly  than  ever  before,  I  now 
penetrate  that  great  future  when  slavery  must  disappear.  Proudly  I 
discern  the  flag  of  my  country,  as  it  ripples  in  every  breeze,  at  last  in 
reality,  as  in  name,  the  flag  of  freedom — undoubted,  pure  and  irresis 
tible.  Am  I  not  right,  then,  in  calling  this  bill  the  best  on  which  Con 
gress  ever  acted  ? 

Sorrowfully  I  bend  before  the  wrong  you  commit.     Joyfully  I  wel 
come  the  promises  of  the  future. 


DEBATE  WITH  DOUGLAS. 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Springfield,  Illinois,  J tine  17, 1858. 

MR.  PRESIDENT,  AND  GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  CONVENTION: — If  we 
could  first  know  where  we  are,  and  whither  we  are  tending,  we  could 
better  judge  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it.  We  are  now  far  into  the 
fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the  avowed  object,  and 
confident  promise,  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation.  Under  the 
operation  of  that  policy  that  agitation  has  not  only  not  ceased,  but  has 
constantly  augmented.  In  my  opinion,  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis 
shall  have  been  reached  and  passed.  "A  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand."  I  believe  this  Government  cannot  endure  permanently 
half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved,  I 
do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall,  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be 
divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing,  or  all  the  other.  Either  the 
opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it 
where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of 
ultimate  extinction;  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall 
become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well 
as  South. 

Have  we  no  tendency  to  the  latter  condition  ? 

Let  any  one  who  doubts  carefully  contemplate  that  now  almost  com 
plete  legal  combination — piece  of  machinery,  so  to  speak — compound 
ed  of  the  Nebraska  doctrine  and  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Let  him 
consider  not  only  what  work  the  machinery  is  adapted  to  do,  and  how 
well  adapted;  but  also  let  him  study  the  history  of  its  construction,  and 
trace,  if  he  can,  or  rather  fail,  if  he  can,  to  trace  the  evidences  of 
design  and  concert  of  action  among  its  chief  architects  from  the  be 
ginning. 

The  new  year  of  1854  found  slavery  excluded  from  more  than  half 
the  States  by  State  Constitutions,  and  from  most  of  the  national  terri- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  495 

tory  by  Congressional  prohibition.  Four  days  later  commenced  the 
struggle  which  ended  in  repealing  that  Congressional  prohibition. 
This  opened  all  the  national  territory  to  slavery,  and  was  the  first  point 
gained. 

But  so  far  Congress  only  had  acted;  and  an  indorsement  by  the 
people,  real  or  apparent,  was  indispensable,  to  save  the  point  already 
gained  and  give  chance  for  more. 

This  necessity  had  not  been  overlooked,  but  had  been  provided  for, 
as  well  as  might  be,  in  the  notable  argument  of  "  squatter  sovereignty," 
otherwise  called  "sacred  right  of  self-government,"  which  latter 
phrase,  though  expressive  of  the  only  rightful  basis  of  any  government, 
was  so  perverted  in  this  attempted  use  of  it  as  to  amount  to  just  this: 
That  if  any  one  man  choose  to  enslave  another,  no  third  man  shall  be 
allowed  to  object.  That  argument  was  incorporated  into  the  Ne 
braska  bill  itself,  in  the  language  which  follows:  "  It  being  the  true 
intent  and  meaning  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  terri 
tory  or  state,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom;  but  to  leave  the  people 
thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions 
in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States." 
Then  opened  the  roar  of  loose  declamation  in  favor  of  "  squatter 
sovereignty,"  and  "sacred  right  of  self-government."  "  But,"  said 
opposition  members,  "  let  us  amend  the  bill  so  as  to  expressly  declare 
that  the  people  of  the  territory  may  exclude  slavery."  "  Not  we," 
said  the  friends  of  the  measure;  and  down  they  voted  the  amend 
ment. 

While  the  Nebraska  bill  was  passing  through  Congress,  a  law-case, 
involving  the  question  of  a  negro's  freedom,  by  reason  of  his  owner 
having  voluntarily  taken  him  first  into  a  free  state  and  then  into  a 
territory  covered  by  the  Congressional  prohibition,  and  held  him  as  a 
slave  for  a  long  time  in  each,  was  passing  through  the  United  States 
Circuit  Court  for  the  District  of  Missouri;  and  both  Nebraska  bill  and 
lawsuit  were  brought  to  a  decision  in  the  same  month  of  May,  1854. 
The  negro's  name  was  "  Dred  Scott,"  which  name  now  designates  the 
decision  finally  made  in  the  case.  Before  the  then  next  presidential 
election,  the  law-case  came  to,  and  was  argued  in,  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States;  but  the  decision  of  it  was  deferred  until  after  the  . 
election.  Still,  before  the  election,  Senator  Trumbull,  on  the  floor  of 
the  Senate,  requested  the  leading  advocate  of  the  Nebraska  bill  to 
state  his  opinion  whether  the  people  of  a  territory  can  constitutionally 
exclude  slavery  from  their  limits;  and  the  latter  answers:  "That  is  a 
question  for  the  Supreme  Court." 

The  election  came.  Mr.  Buchanan  was  elected,  and  the  indorse 
ment,  such  as  it  was,  secured.  That  was  the  second  point  gained. 
The  indorsement,  however,  fell  short  of  a  clear  popular  majority  by 
nearly  four  hundred  thousand  votes,  and  so,  perhaps,  was  not  over 
whelmingly  reliable  and  satisfactory.  The  outgoing  President,  in  his 


496  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

last  annual  message,  as  Impressively  as  possible  echoed  back  upon  the 
people  the  weight  and  authority  of  the  indorsement.  The  Supreme 
Court  met  again;  did  not  announce  their  decision,  but  ordered  a  re- 
argument.  The  presidential  inauguration  came,  and  still  no  decision 
of  the  court;  but  the  incoming  President,  in  his  inaugural  address, 
fervently  exhorted  the  people  to  abide  by  the  forthcoming  decision, 
whatever  it  might  be.  Then,  in  a  few  days,  came  the  decision. 

The  reputed  author  of  the  Nebraska  bill  finds  an  early  occasion  to 
make  a  speech  at  this  capital,  indorsing  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and 
vehemently  denouncing  all  opposition  to  it.  The  new  President,  too, 
seizes  the  early  occasion  of  the  Silliman  letter  to  indorse  and  strongly 
construe  that  decision  and  to  express  his  astonishment  that  any  dif 
ferent  view  had  ever  been  entertained. 

At  length  a  squabble  springs  up  between  the  President  and  the  au 
thor  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  on  the  mere  question  of  fact,  whether  the 
Lecompton  Constitution  was  or  was  not,  in  any  just  sense,  made  by 
the  people  of  Kansas;  and  in  that  quarrel  the  latter  declares  that  all 
he  wants  is  a  fair  vote  for  the  people,  and  that  he  cares  not  whether 
slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted  up.  I  do  not  understand  his  declara 
tion  that  he  cares  not  whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted  up,  to 
be  intended  by  him  other  than  as  an  apt  definition  of  the  policy  he 
would  impress  upon  the  public  mind — the  principle  for  which  he  de 
clares  he  has  suffered  so  much,  and  is  ready  to  suffer  to  the  end.  And 
well  may  he  cling  to  that  principle.  If  he  has  any  parental  feeling, 
well  may  he  cling  to  it.  That  principle  is  the  only  shred  left  of  his 
original  Nebraska  doctrine.  Under  the  Dred  Scott  decision  "  squatter 
sovereignty"  squatted  out  of  existence,  tumbled  down,  like  temporary 
scaffolding — like  the  mould  at  the  foundry  served  through  one  blast 
and  fell  back  into  loose  sand — helped  to  carry  an  election,  and  then 
was  kicked  to  the  winds.  His  late  joint  struggle  with  the  Republi 
cans,  against  the  Lecompton  Constitution,  involves  nothing  of  the 
original  Nebraska  doctrine.  That  struggle  was  made  on  a  point — the 
right  of  a  people  to  make  their  own  constitution — upon  which  he  and 
the  Republicans  have  never  differed. 

The  several  points  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  in  connection  with 
Senator  Douglas's  "care  not"  policy,  constitute  the  piece  of  machinery, 
in  its  present  state  of  advancement.  This  was  the  third  point  gained. 
The  working  points  of  that  machinery  are: — 

First.  That  no  negro  slave,  imported  as  such  from  Africa,  and  no 
descendant  of  such  slave,  can  ever  be  a  citizen  of  any  state,  in  the 
sense  of  that  term  as  used  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
This  point  is  made  in  order  to  deprive  the  negro,  in  every  possible 
event,  of  the  benefit  of  that  provision  of  the  United  States  Constitu 
tion,  which  declares  that  "  The  citizens  of  each  state  shall  be  entitled 
to  all  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several  states." 

Secondly.  That,  "subject  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States," 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  497 

neither  Congress  nor  a  territorial  legislature  can  exclude  slavery 
from  any  United  States  territory.  This  point  is  made  in  order  that 
individual  men  may  fill  up  the  territories  with  slaves  without  danger 
of  losing  them  as  property,  and  thus  to  enhance  the  chances  of  per 
manency  to  the  institution  through  all  the  future. 

Thirdly.  That  whether  the  holding  a  negro  in  actual  slavery  in  a 
free  state  makes  him  free,  as  against  the  holder,  the  United  States 
courts  will  not  decide,  but  will  leave  to  be  decided  by  the  courts  of  any 
slave  state  the  negro  may  be  forced  into  by  the  master.  This  point  is 
made,  not  to  be  pressed  immediately;  but,  if  acquiesced  in  for  awhile, 
and  apparently  indorsed  by  the  people  at  an  election,  then  to  sustain 
the  logn-,11  conclusion  that  what  Dred  Scott's  master  might  lawfully  do 
with  Dred  Scott,  in  the  free  State  of  Illinois,  every  other  master  may 
lawfully  do  with  any  other  one,  or  one  thousand,  slaves,  in  Illinois,  or 
in  any  other  free  state. 

Auxiliary  to  all  this,  and  working  hand  in  hand  with  it,  the  Nebraska 
doctrine,  or  what  is  left  of  it,  is  to  educate  and  mould  public  opinion,  at 
least  Northern  public  opinion,  not  to  care  whether  slavery  is  voted  down 
or  voted  up.  This  shows  exactly  where  we  now  are  ;  and  partially,  also, 
whither  we  are  tending. 

It  will  throw  additional  light  on  the  latter,  to  go  back,  and  run  the 
mind  over  the  sti-ing  of  historical  facts,  already  stated.  Several  things 
will  now  appear  less  dark  and  mysterious  than  they  did  when  they  were 
transpiring.  The  people  were  to  be  left  "perfectly  free,"  "  subject  only 
to  the  Constitution."  What  the  Constitution  had  to  do  with  it,  outsiders 
could  not  then  see.  Plainly  enough  now,  it  was  an  exactly  fitted  niche 
for  the  Dred  Scott  decision  to  afterward  come  in,  and  declare  the  perfect 
freedom  of  the  people  to  be  just  no  freedom  at  all.  Why  was  the  amend 
ment,  expressly  declaring  the  right  of  the  people,  voted  down  ?  Plainly 
enough  now  :  the  adoption  of  it  would  have  spoiled  the  niche  for  the 
Dred  Scott  decision.  Why  was  the  court  decision  held  up  ?  WThy  even 
a  Senator's  individual  opinion  withheld  till  after  the  presidential  election  ? 
Plainly  enough  now  :  the  speaking  out  then  would  have  damaged  the 
perfectly  tree  argument  upon  which  the  election  was  to  be  carried.  Why 
the  outgoing  President's  felicitation  on  the  indorsement  ?  Why  the  delay 
of  a  re-argument?  Why  the  incoming  President's  advance  exhortation 
in  favor  of  the  decision  ?  These  things  look  like  the  cautious  patting 
and  petting  of  a  spirited  horse  preparatory  to  mounting  him,  when  it  is 
dreaded  that  he  may  give  the  rider  a  fall.  And  why  the  hasty  after-in 
dorsement  of  the  decision  by  the  President  and  others  ? 

We  cannot  absolutely  know  that  all  these  exact  adaptations  are  the 
result  of  preconcert.  But  when  we  see  a  lot  of  framed  timbers,  different 
portions  of  which  we  know  have  been  gotten  out  at  different  times  and 
places,  and  by  different  workmen — Stephen,  Franklin,  Roger,  and 
James,  for  instance — and  when  we  see  these  timbers  joined  together, 
and  see  they  exactly  make  the  frame  of  a  house  or  a  mill,  all  the  tenons 


498        .  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

and  mortices  exactly  fitting,  and  all  the  lengths  and  proportions  of  the 
different  pieces  exactly  adapted  to  their  respective  places;  and  not  a 
piece  too  many  or  too  few — not  omitting  even  scaffolding — or,  if  a  single 
piece  be  lacking,  we  see  the  place  in  the  frame  exactly  fitted  and  pre 
pared  yet  to  bring  such  piece  in — in  such  a  case,  we  find  it  impossible 
not  to  believe  that  Stephen  and  Franklin  and  Roger  and  James  all  un 
derstood  one  another  from  the  beginning,  and  all  worked  upon  a 
common  plan  or  draft  drawn  up  before  the  first  blow  was  struck. 

It  should  not  be  overlooked  that,  by  the  Nebraska  bill,  the  people  of 
a  state,  as  well  as  territoiy,  were  to  be  left  "perfectly  free,"  "subject 
only  to  the  Constitution."  Why  mention  a  state  ?  They  were  legisla 
ting  for  territories,  and  not  for  or  about  states.  Certainly,  the  people 
of  a  state  are  and  ought  to  be  subject  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  ;  but  why  is  mention  of  this  lugged  into  this  merely  territorial 
law  ?  Why  are  the  people  of  a  territory  and  the  people  of  a  state 
therein  lumped  together,  and  their  relation  to  the  Constitution  therein 
treated  as  being  precisely  the  same?  While  the  opinion  of  the  court, 
by  Chief-Justice  Taney,  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  and  the  separate  opin 
ions  of  all  the  concurring  Judges,  expressly  declare  that  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  neither  permits  Congress  nor  a  territorial  legisla 
ture  to  exclude  slavery  from  any  United  States  territory,  they  all  omit 
to  declare  whether  or  not  the  same  Constitution  permits  a  state,  or  the 
people  of  a  state,  to  exclude  it.  Possibly,  this  is  a  mere  omission  ;  but 
who  can  be  quite  sure,  if  McLean  or  Curtis  had  sought  to  get  into  the 
opinion  a  declaration  of  unlimited  power  in  the  people  of  a  state  to  ex 
clude  slavery  from  their  limits,  just  as  Chase  and  Mace  sought  to  get 
such  declaration,  in  behalf  of  the  people  of  a  territory,  into  the  Ne 
braska  bill  ; — I  ask,  who  can  be  quite  sure  that  it  would  not  have  been 
voted  down  in  the  one  case,  as  it  had  been  in  the  other?  The  nearest 
approach  to  the  point  of  declaring  the  power  of  a  state  over  slavery,  is 
made  by  Judge  Nelson.  He  approaches  it  more  than  once,  using  the 
precise  idea,  and  almost  the  language,  too,  of  the  Nebraska  act.  On 
one  occasion,  his  exact  language  is,  "  except  in  cases  where  the  power  is 
restrained  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  law  of 
the  state  is  supreme  over  the  subject  of  slavery  within  its  juris 
diction."  In  what  cases  the  power  of  the  states  is  so  restrained 
by  the  United  States  Constitution,  is  left  an  open  question,  pre 
cisely  as  the  same  question,  as  to  the  restraint  on  the  power  of  the 
territories,  was  left  open  in  the  Nebraska  act.  Put  this  and  that 
together,  and  we  have  another  nice  little  niche,  which  we  may, 
ere  long,  see  filled  with  another  Supreme  Court  decision,  declaring 
that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  does  not  permit  a  state  to 
exclude  slavery  from  its  limits.  And  this  may  especially  be  expected, 
if  the  doctrine  of  "care  not  whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted 
up,"  shall  gain  upon  the  public  mind  sufficiently  to  give  promise  that 
such  a  decision  can  be  maintained  when  made. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  499 

Such  a  decision  is  all  that  slavery  now  lacks  of  being  alike  lawful  in 
all  the  states.  Welcome  or  unwelcome,  such  decision  is  probably 
coming  and  will  soon  be  upon  us,  unless  the  power  of  the  present 
political  dynasty  shall  be  met  and  overthro-.vn.  We  shall  lie  down 
pleasantly  dreaming  that  the  people  of  Missouri  are  on  the  verge  of 
making  their  state  free,  and  we  shall  awake  to  the  reality  instead,  that 
the  Supreme  Court  has  made  Illinois  a  slave  state.  To  meet  and 
overthrow  the  power  of  that  dynasty  is  the  work  now  before  all  those 
who  would  prevent  that  consummation.  That  is  what  we  have  to  do. 
How  can  we  best  do  it  ? 

There  are  those  who  denounce  us  openly  to  their  own  friends,  and 
yet  whisper  us  softly,  that  Senator  Douglas  is  the  aptest  instrument 
there  is  with  which  to  effect  that  object.  They  wish  us  to  infer  all, 
from  the  fact  that  he  now  has  a  little  quarrel  with  the  present  head  of 
the  dynasty,  and  that  he  has  regularly  voted  with  us  on  a  single  point, 
upon  which  he  and  we  have  never  differed.  They  remind  us  that  he 
is  a  great  man,  and  that  the  largest  of  us  are  very  small  ones.  Let  this 
be  granted.  But  "a  living  dog  is  better  than  a  dead  lion."  Judge 
Douglas,  if  not  a  dead  lion,  for  this  work,  is  at  least  a  caged  and  tooth 
less  one.  How  can  he  oppose  the  advances  of  slavery  ?  He  don't 
care  any  thing  about  it.  His  avowed  mission  is  impressing  the  "  pub 
lic  heart "  to  care  nothing  about  it.  A  leading  Douglas  democratic 
newspaper  thinks  Douglas's  superior  talent  will  be  needed  to  resist 
the  revival  of  the  African  slave-trade.  Does  Douglas  believe  an  effort 
to  revive  that  trade  is  approaching?  He  has  not  said  so.  Does  he 
really  think  so  ?  But  if 'it  is,  how  can  he  resist  it  ?  For  years  he  has 
labored  to  prove  it  a  sacred  right  of  white  men  to  take  negro  slaves 
into  the  new  territories.  Can  he  possibly  show  that  it  is  less  a  sacred 
right  to  buy  them  where  they  can  be  bought  cheapest?  And  unques 
tionably  they  can  be  bought  cheaper  in  Africa  than  in  Virginia.  He 
has  done  all  in  his  power  to  reduce  the  whole  question  of  slavery  to 
one  of  a  mere  right  of  property;  and  as  such,  how  can  he  oppose  the 
foreign  slave-trade — how  can  he  refuse  that  trade  in  that  "  property  " 
shall  be  "  perfectly  free" — unless  he  does  it  as  a  protection  to  the 
home  production  ?  And  as  the  home  producers  will  probably  not 
ask  the  protection,  he  will  be  wholly  without  a  ground  of  opposition. 

Senator  Douglas  holds,  we  know,  that  a  man  may  rightfully  be  wiser 
to-day  than  he  was  yesterday — that  he  may  rightfully  change  when  he 
finds  himself  wrong.  But  can  we,  for  that  reason,  run  ahead,  and 
infer  that  he  will  make  any  particular  change,  of  which  he  himself  has 
given  no  intimation  ?  Can  we  safely  base  our  action  upon  any  such 
vague  inference  ?  Now,  as  ever,  I  wish  not  to  misrepresent  Judge 
Douglas's  position,  question  his  motives,  or  do  aught  that  can  be  per 
sonally  offensive  to  him.  Whenever,  if  ever,  he  and  we  can  come 
together  on  principle,  so  that  our  cause  may  have  assistance  from  his 
great  ability,  I  hope  to  have  interposed  no  adventitious  obstacle.  But, 


500  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

clearly,  he  is  not  now  with  us — he  does  not  pretend  to  be — he  does  not 
promise  ever  to  be. 

Our  cause,  then,  must  be  intrusted  to,  and  conducted  by,  its  own 
undoubted  friends — those  whose  hands  are  free,  whose  hearts  are  in 
the  work — who  do  care  for  the  result.  Two  years  ago,  the  Republicans 
of  the  nation  mustered  over  thirteen  hundred  thousand  strong.  We  did 
this  under  the  single  impulse  of  resistance  to  a  common  danger,  with 
every  external  circumstance  against  us.  Of  strange,  discordant,  and 
even  hostile  elements,  we  gathered  from  the  four  winds,  and  formed 
and  fought  the  battle  through,  under  the  constant  hot  fire  of  a  disci 
plined,  proud,  and  pampered  enemy.  Did  we  brave  all  then,  to  falter 
now  ? — now,  when  that  same  enemy  is  wavering,  dissevered,  and  bel 
ligerent  ?  The  result  is  not  doubtful.  We  shall  not  fail — if  we  stand 
firm,  we  shall  not  fail.  Wise  counsels  may  accelerate,  or  mistakes 
delay  it,  but,  sooner  or  later,  the  victory  is  sure  to  come. 

AT  QUINCY,  October  13. 

We  have  in  this  nation  this  element  of  domestic  slavery.  It  is  a 
matter  of  absolute  certainty  that  it  is  a  disturbing  element.  It  is  the 
opinion  of  all  the  great  men  who  have  expressed  an  opinion  upon  it, 
that  it  is  a  dangerous  element.  We  keep  up  a  controversy  in  regard 
to  it.  That  controversy  necessarily  springs  from  difference  of  opinion, 
and  if  we  can  learn  exactly — can  reduce  to  the  lowest  elements — what 
that  difference  of  opinion  is,  we  perhaps  shall  be  better  prepared  for 
discussing  the  different  systems  of  policy  that  we  would  propose 
in  regard  to  that  disturbing  element.  I  suggest  that  the  difference  of 
opinion,  reduced  to  its  lowest  terms,  is  no  other  than  the  difference 
between  the  men  who  think  slavery  a  wrong  and  those  who  do  not 
think  it  wrong.  The  Republican  party  think  it  a  wrong — we  think  it 
is  a  moral,  a  social,  and  a  political  wrong.  We  think  it  is  a  wrong 
not  confining  itself  merely  to  the  persons  or  the  states  where  it  exists, 
but  that  it  is  a  wrong  in  its  tendency,  to  say  the  least,  that  extends  it 
self  to  the  existence  of  the  whole  nation.  Because  we  think  it  wronr, 
we  propose  a  course  of  policy  that  shall  deal  with  it  as  a  wrong. 
We  deal  with  it  as  with  any  other  wrong,  in  so  far  as  we  can  prevent 
its  growing  any  larger,  and  so  deal  with  it  that  in  the  run  of  time  there 
may  be  some  promise  of  an  end  to  it.  We  have  a  due  regard  to  the 
actual  presence  of  it  amongst  us,  and  the  difficulties  of  getting  rid  of  it 
in  any  satisfactory  way,  and  all  the  constitutional  obligations  thrown 
about  it.  I  suppose  that  in  reference  both  to  its  actual  existence  in 
the  nation,  and  to  our  constitutional  obligations,  we  have  no  right  at 
all  to  disturb  it  in  the  states  where  it  exists,  and  we  profess  that  we 
have  no  more  inclination  to  disturb  it  than  we  have  the  right  to  do  it. 
We  go  further  than  that;  we  don't  propose  to  disturb  it  where,  in  one 
instance,  we  think  the  Constitution  would  permit  us.  We  think  the 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  501 

Constitution  would  permit  us  to  disturb  it  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
Still  we  do  not  propose  to  do  that,  unless  it  should  be  in  terms  which 
I  don't  suppose  the  nation  is  very  likely  soon  to  agree  to — the  terms 
of  making  the  emancipation  gradual,  and  compensating  the  unwilling 
owners.  Where  we  suppose  we  have  the  constitutional  right,  we  re 
strain  ourselves  in  reference  to  the  actual  existence  of  the  institution 
and  the  difficulties  thrown  about  it.  We  also  oppose  it  as  an  evil,  so 
far  as  it  seeks  to  spread  itself.  We  insist  on  the  policy  that  shall  re 
strict  it  to  its  present  limits.  We  don't  suppose  that  in  doing  this  we 
violate  any  thing  due  to  the  actual  presence  of  the  institution,  or  any 
thing  due  to  the  constitutional  guarantees  thrown  around  it. 

We  oppose  the  Dred  Scott  decision  in  a  certain  way,  upon  which  I 
ought  perhaps  to  address  you  a  few  words.  We  do  not  propose  that 
when  Dred  Scott  has  been  decided  to  be  a  slave  by  the  court,  we,  a^  a 
mob,  will  decide  him  to  be  free.  We  do  not  propose  that,  when  any 
other  one,  or  one  thousand,  shall  be  decided  by  that  court  to  be  slaves, 
we  will  in  any  violent  way  disturb  the  rights  of  property  thus  settled; 
but  we  nevertheless  do  oppose  that  decision  as  a  political  rule,  which 
shall  be  binding  on  the  voter  to  vote  for  nobody  who  thinks  it  wrong, 
which  shall  be  binding  on  the  members  of  Congress  or  the  President 
to  favor  no  measure  that  does  not  actually  concur  with  the  principles 
of  that  decision.  We  do  not  propose  to  be  bound  by  it  as  a  political 
rule  in  that  way,  because  we  think  it  lays  the  foundation  not  merely  of 
enlarging  and  spreading  out  what  we  consider  an  evil,  but  it  lays  the 
foundation  for  spreading  that  evil  into  the  states  themselves.  We  pro 
pose  so  resisting  it  as  to  have  it  reversed  if  we  can,  and  a  new  judicial 
rule  established  upon  this  subject. 

I  will  add  this,  that  if  there  be  any  man  who  does  not  believe  that 
slavery  is  wrong  in  the  three  aspects  which  I  have  mentioned,  or  in 
any  one  of  them,  that  man  is  misplaced,  and  ought  to  leave  us. 
While,  on  the  other  hand,  if  there  be  any  man  in  the  republican  party 
who  is  impatient  over  the  necessity  springing  from  its  actual  presence, 
and  is  impatient  of  the  constitutional  guarantees  thrown  around  it,  and 
would  act  in  disregard  of  these,  he  too  is  misplaced,  standing  with  us. 
He  will  find  his  place  somewhere  else;  for  we  have  a  due  regard,  so 
far  as  we  are  capable  of  understanding  them,  for  all  these  things. 
This,  gentlemen,  as  well  as  I  can  give  it,  is  a  plain  statement  of  our 
principles  in  all  their  enormity. 

AT  ALTON,  October  15. 

I  have  intimated  that  I  thought  the  agitation  would  not  cease  until 
a  crisis  should  have  been  reached  and  passed.  I  have  stated  in  what 
way  I  thought  it  would  be  reached  and  passed.  I  have  said  that  it 
might  go  one  way  or  the  other.  We  might,  by  arresting  the  further 
spread  of  it,  and  placing  it  where  the  fathers  originally  placed  it,  put 


502  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

it  where  the  public  mind  should  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  was  in  the 
course  of  ultimate  extinction.  Thus  the  agitation  may  cease.  It  may 
be  pushed  forward  until  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  states, 
old  as  well  as  new,  north  as  well  as  south.  I  have  said,  and  I  repeat, 
my  wish  is  that  the  further  spread  of  it  may  be  arrested,  and  that  it 
may  be  placed  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is 
in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  I  have  expressed  that  as  my 
wish.  I  entertain  the  opinion,  upon  evidence  sufficient  to  my  mind, 
that  the  fathers  of  this  government  placed  that  institution  where  the 
public  mind  did  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction.  Let  me  ask  why  they  made  provision  that  the  source  of 
slavery — the  African  slave-trade — should  be  cut  off  at  the  end  of 
twenty  years  ?  Why  did  they  make  provision  that  in  all  the  new  ter 
ritory  we  owned  at'  that  time,  slavery  should  be  forever  inhibited  ? 
Why  stop  its  spread  in  one  direction  and  cut  off  its  source  in  another, 
if  they  did  not  look  to  its  being  placed  in  the  course  of  ultimate  ex 
tinction? 

The  sentiment  that  contemplates  the  institution  of  slavery  in  this 
country  as  a  wrong  is  the  sentiment  of  the  republican  party.  It  is  the 
sentiment  around  which  all  their  actions — all  their  arguments  circle — 
from  which  all  their  propositions  radiate.  They  look  upon  it  as  being 
a  moral,  social,  and  political  wrong;  and  while  they  contemplate  it  as 
such,  they  nevertheless  have  due  regard  for  its  actual  existence  among 
us,  and  the  difficulties  of  getting  rid  of  it  in  any  satisfactory  way,  arid 
to  all  the  constitutional  obligations  thrown  about  it.  Yet,  having  a 
due  regard  for  these,  they  desire  a  policy  in  regard  to  it  that  looks  to 
its  not  creating  any  more  danger.  They  insist  that  it  should,  as  far 
as  may  be,  be  treated  as  a  wrong,  and  one  of  the  methods  of  treating 
it  as  a  wrong  is  to  make  provision  that  it  shall  grow  no  larger.  They 
also  desire  a  policy  that  looks  to  a  peaceful  end  of  slavery  at  some 
time,  as  being  wrong.  These  are  the  views  they  entertain  in  regard 
to  it,  as  I  understand  them;  and  all  their  sentiments — all  their  argu 
ments  and  propositions  are  brought  within  this  range.  I  have  said, 
and  I  repeat  it  here,  that  if  there  be  a  man  amongst  us  who  does  not 
think  that  the  institution  of  slavery  is  wrong,  in  any  one  of  the  aspects 
of  which  I  have  spoken,  he  is  misplaced,  and  ought  not  to  be  with  us. 
And  if  there  be  a  man  amongst  us  who  is  so  impatient  of  it  as  a  wrong 
as  to  disregard  its  actual  presence  among  us,  and  the  difficulty  of  get 
ting  rid  of  it  suddenly  in  a  satisfactory  way,  and  to  disregard  the  con 
stitutional  obligations  thrown  about  it,  that  man  is  misplaced,  if  he  is 
on  our  platform.  We  disclaim  sympathy  with  him  in  practical  action. 
He  is  not  placed  properly  with  us. 

On  this  subject  of  treating  it  as  a  wrong,  and  limiting  its  spread,  let 

me  say  a  word.     Has  anything  ever  threateruxl  the  existence  of  this 

-Union,  save  and  except  this  very  institution  of  slavery?     WThat  is  it 

that  we  hold  most  dear  amongst  us  ?     Our  own  liberty  and  prosperity. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  503 

What  has  ever  threatened  our  liberty  and  prosperity,  save  and  except 
this  institution  of  slavery?  If  this  is  true,  how  do  you  propose  to  jm- 
prove  the  condition  of  things  by  enlarging  slavery — by  spreading  it 
out  and  making  it  bigger?  You  may  have  a  wen  or  cancer  upon  your 
person  and  not  be  able  to  cut  it  out  lest  you  bleed  to  death;  but  surely 
it  is  no  way  to  cure  it,  to  engraft  it  and  spread  it  over  your  whole 
body.  That  is  no  proper  way  of  treating  what  you  regard  a  wrong. 
You  see  this  peaceful  way  of  dealing  with  it  as  a  wrong — restricting 
the  spread  of  it,  and  not  allowing  it  to  go  into  new  countries  where  it 
had  not  already  existed.  That  is  the  peaceful  way,  the  old-fashioned 
way,  the  way  in  which  the  fathers  themselves  set  us  the  example. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  have  said  there  is  a  sentiment  which  treats  it 
as  not  being  wrong.  That  is  the  democratic  sentiment  of  this  day.  I 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  every  man  who  stands  within  that  range  posi 
tively  asserts  that  it  is  right.  That  class  will  include  all  who  positively 
assert  that  it  is  right,  and  all  who,  like  Judge  Douglas,  treat  it  as  in 
different,  and  do  not  say  it  is  either  right  or  wrong.  These  two  classes 
of  men  fall  within  the  general  class  of  those  who  do  not  look  upon  it 
as  a  wrong.  And  if  there  be  among  you  anybody  who  supposes  that 
he,  as  a  democrat,  can  consider  himself  "as  much  opposed  to  sla 
very  as  anybody,"  I  would  like  to  reason  with  him.  You  never  treat 
it  as  a  wrong.  What  other  thing  that  you  consider  as  a  wrong,  do  you 
deal  with  as  you  deal  with  that  ?  Perhaps  you  say  it  is  a  wrong,  but 
your  leader  never  does,  and  you  quarrel  with  anybody  who  says  it  is 
wrong.  Although  you  pretend  to  say  so  yourself,  you  can  find  no  fit 
place  to  deal  with  it  as  a  wrong.  You  must  not  say  anything  about  it 
in  the  free  states,  because  it  is  not  here.  You  must  not  say  anything 
about  it  in  the  slave  states,  because  it  is  there.  You  must  not  say  any 
thing  about  it  in  the  pulpit,  because  that  is  religion,  and  has  nothing  to 
do  with  it.  You  must  not  say  anything  about  it  in  politics,  because  that 
will  disturb  the  security  of  <(  my  place."  There  is  no  place  to  talk 
about  it  as  being  a  wrong,  although  you  say  yourself  it  is  a  wrong. 
But,  finally,  you  will  screw  yourself  up  to  the  belief  that  if  the  people 
of  the  slave  states  should  adopt  a  system  of  gradual  emancipation  on 
the  slavery  question,  you  would  be  in  favor  of  it.  You  say  that  is 
getting  it  in  the  right  place,  and  you  would  be  glad  to  see  it  succeed. 
But  you  are  deceiving  yourself.  You  all  know  that  Frank  Blair  and 
Gratz  Bi'own,  down  there  in  St.  Louis,  undertook  to  introduce  that 
system  into  Missouri.  They  fought  as  valiantly  as  they  could  for  the 
system  of  gradual  emancipation  which  you  pretend  you  would  be  glad 
to  see  succeed.  Now  I  will  bring  you  to  the  test.  After  a  hard  fight 
they  were  beaten,  and  when  the  news  came  over  here  you  threw  up 
your  hats  and  hurrahed  for  democracy.  More  than  that;  take  all  the 
arguments  made  in  favor  of  the  system  you  have  proposed,  and  it 
carefully  excludes  the  idea  that  there  is  anything  wrong  in  the  institu 
tion  of  slavery.  The  arguments  to  sustain  that  policy  carefully  ex- 
A.P.-17. 


5°4 


AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 


eluded  it.  Even  here  to-day  you  heard  Judge  Douglas  quarrel  with 
me  because  I  uttered  a  wish  that  it  might  some  time  come  to  an  end. 
Although  Henry  Clay  could  say  he  wished  every  slave  in  the  United 
States  was  in  the  country  of  his  ancestors,  I  am  denounced  by  those 
pretending  to  respect  Henry  Clay  for  uttering  a  wish  that  it  might 
some  time,  in  some  peaceful  way,  come  to  an  end.  The  democratic 
policy  in  regard  to  that  institution  will  not  tolerate  the  merest  breath, 
the  slightest  hint,  of  the  least  degree  of  wrong  about  it. 


BURIAL  OF  JOHN   BROWN. 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 

North  Elba,  N.  Y.,  December  8,  1859. 

How  feeble  words  seem  here  !  How  can  I  hope  to  utter  what  your 
hearts  are  full  of  ?  I  fear  to  disturb  the  harmony  which  his  life  breathes 
round  his  home.  One  and  another  of  you,  his  neighbors,  say,  "  I 
have  known  him  five  years;"  "  I  have  known  him  ten  years."  It 
seems  to  me  as  if  we  had  none  of  us  known  him.  How  our  admir 
ing,  loving  wonder  has  grown,  day  by  day,  as  he  has  unfolded  trait 
after  trait  of  earnest,  brave,  tender,  Christian  life  !  We  see  him 
walking  with  radiant,  serene  face  to  the  scaffold,  and  think  what  an 
iron  heart,  what  devoted  faith  !  We  take  up  his  letters  beginning: 
"  My  dear  wife  and  children,  every  one," — see  him  stoop  on  his  way 
to  the  scaffold  and  kiss  that  negro  child — and  this  iron  heart  seerns  all 
tenderness.  Marvellous  old  man  !  We  have  hardly  said  it  when  the 
loved  forms  of  his  sons,  in  the  bloom  of  young  devotion,  encircle 
him,  and  we  remember  he  is  not  alone,  only  the  majestic  centre  of  a 
group.  Your  neighbor  farmer  went,  surrounded  by  his  household,  to 
tell  the  slaves  there  were  still  hearts  and  right  arms  ready  and  nerved 
for  their  service.  From  this  roof  four,  from  a  neighboring  roof  two, 
to  make  up  that  score  of  heroes.  How  resolute  each  looked  into  the 
face  of  Virginia,  how  loyally  each  stood  at  his  forlorn  post,  meeting 
death  cheerfully,  till  that  master-voice  said,  "  It  is  enough."  And  these 
weeping  children  and  widow  seem  so  lifted  up  and  consecrated  by 
long,  single-hearted  devotion  to  his  great  purpose,  that  we  dare,  even 
at  this  moment,  to  remind  them  how  blessed  they  are  in  the  privilege 
of  thinking  that  in  the  last  throbs  of  those  brave  young  hearts,  which 
lie  buried  on  the  banks  of  the  Shenandoah,  thoughts  of  them  mingled 
with  love  to  God  and  hope  for  the  slave. 

He  has  abolished  slavery  in  Virginia.  You  may  say  this  is  too 
much.  Our  neighbors  are  the  last  men  we  know.  The  hours  that 
pass  us  are  the  ones  we  appreciate  the  least.  Men  walked  Boston 
streets  when  night  fell  on  Bunker's  Hill,  and  pitied  Warren,  saying, 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  505 

*'  Foolish  man  !  Thrown  away  his  life  !  Why  didn't  he  measure  his 
means  better  ?"  Now  we  see  him  standing  colossal  on  that  blood 
stained  sod,  and  severing  that  day  the  tie  which  bound  Boston  to 
Great  Britain.  That  night  George  III.  ceased  to  rule  in  New  Eng 
land.  History  will  date  Virginia  emancipation  from  Harper's  Ferry. 
True,  the  slave  is  still  there.  So,  when  the  tempest  uproots  a  pine 
on  your  hills,  it  looks  green  for  months, — a  year  or  two.  Still,  it  is 
timber,  not  a  tree.  John  Brown  has  loosened  the  roots  of  the  slave 
system;  it  only  breathes — it  does  not  live — hereafter. 

Men  say,  "  How  coolly  brave  !"  But  matchless  courage  seems  the 
least  of  his  merits.  How  gentleness  graced  it !  When  the  frightened 
town  wished  to  bear  off  the  body  of  the  mayor,  a  man  said,  "  I  will 
go,  Miss  Fowke,  under  their  rifles,  if  you  will  stand  between  them  and 
me."  He  knew  he  could  trust  their  gentle  respect  for  a  woman.  He 
was  right.  He  went  into  the  thick  of  the  fight  and  bore  off  the  body 
in  safety.  That  same  girl  flung  herself  between  Virginia  rifles  and 
your  brave  young  Thompson.  They  had  no  pity.  The  pitiless  bullet 
reached  him,  spite  of  the  woman's  prayers,  though  the  fight  had  lomf 
been  over.  How  God  has  blessed  him  !  How  truly  he  may  say,  "  I 
have  fought  a -good  fight,  I  have  finished  my  course."  Truly,  he  hi:; 
finished — done  his  work.  God  granted  him  the  privilege  to  look  on 
his  work  accomplished.  He  said,  "  I  will  show  the  South  that  twenty 
men  can  take  possession  of  a  town,  hold  it  twenty-four  hours,  and 
carry  away  all  the  slaves  who  wish  to  escape."  Did  he  not  do  it?  On 
Monday  night  he  stood  master  of  Harper's  Ferry — could  have  left 
unchecked  with  a  score  or  a  hundred  slaves.  The  wide  sympathy  and 
secret  approval  are  shown  by  the  eager,  quivering  lips  of  lovers  of 
slavery,  asking,  "Oh'  why  did  he  not  take  his  victory  and  go 
an-av  ?" 

Who  checked  him  at  last  ?  Not  startled  Virginia.  Her  he  had  con 
quered.  The  Union  crushed — seemed  to  crush  him.  In  reality  God 
said.  "  That  work  is  done:  you  have  proved  that  a  slave  state  is  only 
fear  in  the  mask  of  despotism;  come  up  higher,  and  baptize  by  your 
martyi'doiTi  a  million  hearts  into  holier  life."  Surely  such  a  life  is  no 
failure.  How  vast  the  change  in  men's  hearts  !  Insurrection  was  a 
harsh,  horrid  word  to  millions  a  month  ago.  John  Brown  went  a 
whole  generation  beyond  it,  claiming  the  right  for  white  men  to  help 
the  slaves  to  freedom  by  arms.  And  now  men  run  up  and  down,  not 
disputing  his  principle,  but  trying  to  frame  excuses  for  Virginia's 
hanging  so  pure,  honest,  high-hearted,  and  heroic  a  man.  Virginia 
stands  at  the  bar  of  the  civilized  world  on  trial.  Round  her  victim 
crowd  the  apostles  and  martyrs,  all  the  brave,  high  souls  who  have 
said,  'l  God  is  God,"  and  trodden  wicked  laws  under  their  feet. 

As  1  stood  looking  at  his  grandfather's  gravestone,  brought  here 
from  Connecticut,  telling,  as  it  does,  of  his  death  in  the  revolution,  I 
thought  I  could  hear  our  hero-saint  saying,  "  My  fathers  gave  their 


5o6  AMKRfCAX  PATRIOTISM. 

sword  to  the  oppresser — the  slave  still  sinks  before  the  pledged 
force  of  this  nation.  I  give  my  sword  to  the  slave  my  fathers 
forgot." 

If  any  swords  ever  reflected  the  smile  of  Heaven,  surely  it  was 
those  drawn  at  Harper's  Ferry.  If  our  God  is  ever  the  Lord  of  hosts, 
making  one  man  chase  a  thousand,  surely  that  little  band  might  claim 
him  for  their  captain.  Harper's  Ferry  was  no  single  hour,  standing 
alone — taken  out  from  a  common  life — it  wras  the  flowering  out  of 
fifty  years  of  single-hearted  devotion.  He  must  have  lived  wholly  for 
one  great  idea,  when  those  who  owe  their  being  to  him,  and  those 
whom  love  has  joined  to  the  circle,  group  so  harmoniously  around  him, 
each  accepting  serenely  his  and  her  part. 

I  feel  honored  to  stand  under  such  a  roof.  Hereafter  you  will  tell 
children  standing  at  your  knee,  "  I  saw  John  Brown  buried — I  sac 
under  his  roof."  Thank  God  for  such  a  master.  Could  we  have  asked 
a  nobler  representative  of  the  Christian  North  putting  her  foot  on 
the  accursed  system  of  slavery?  As  time  passes,  and  these  hours 
float  back  into  history,  men  will  see  against  the  clear  December  sky- 
that  gallows,  and  round  it  thousands  of  armed  men  guarding  Virginia 
from  her  slaves!  On  the  other  side,  the  serene  brow  of  that  calm  old 
man,  as  he  stoops  to  kiss  the  child  of  a  forlorn  race.  Thank  God  for 
our  emblem.  May  he  soon  bring  Virginia  to  blot  out  hers  in  repent 
ant  shame,  and  cover  that  hateful  gallows  and  soldiery  with  thousands 
of  broken  fetters. 

What  lesson  shall  those  lips  teach  us  ?  Before  that  still,  calm  brow 
let  us  take  a  new  baptism.  How  can  we  stand  here  without  a  fresh 
and  utter  consecration  ?  These  tears  !  how  shall  we  dare  even  to  of 
fer  consolation  ?  Only  lips  fresh  from  such  a  vow  have  the  right  to 
mingle  their  words  with  your  tears.  We  envy  you  your  nearer  place 
to  these  martyred  children  of  God.  I  do  not  believe  slavery  will  go 
down  in  blood.  Ours  is  the  age  of  thought.  Hearts  are  stronger 
than  swords.  The  last  fortnight !  How  sublime  its  lesson  '  the  Chris 
tian  one  of  conscience — of  truth.  Virginia  is  weak,  because  each 
man's  heart  said  amen  to  John  Brown.  His  words — they  are  stronger 
even  than  his  rifles.  These  crushed  a  state.  Those  have  changed 
the  thoughts  of  millions,  and  will  yet  crush  slavery.  Men  said, 
•'  Would  he  had  died  in  arms  !"  God  ordered  better,  and  granted  to 
him  and  the  slave  those  noble  prison  hours — that  single  hour  of  death; 
granted  him  a  higher  than  a  soldier's  place,  that  of  teacher;  the  echoes 
of  his  rifles  have  died  away  in  the  hills — a  million  hearts  guard  his 
words.  God  bless  this  roof — make  it  bless  us.  We  dare  not  say 
bless  you,  children  of  this  home  !  you  stand  nearer  to  one  whose  lips 
God  touched,  and  we  rather  bend  for  your  blessing.  God  make  us  all 
worthier  of  him  whose  dust  we  lay  among  these  hills  he  loved.  Here 
he  girded  himself  and  went  forth  to  battle.  Fuller  success  than  hi? 
heart  ever  dreamed  God  granted  him.  He  sleeps  in  the  blessings  01 


ABRAHAM  IJ.YCOLA'.  507 

the  crushed  and  the  poor,  and  men  believe  more  firmly  in  virtue,  now 
that  such  a  man  has  lived.  Standing  here,  let  us  thank  God  for  a 
firmer  faith  and  fuller  hope. 


AT    INDEPENDENCE    HALL. 
{  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Philadelphia,   Feb.    21,    iS6r. 

I  am  filled  with  deep  emotion  at  finding  myself  standing  here  in  this 
place,  where  were  collected  together  the  wisdom,  the  patriotism,  the 
devotion  to  principle  from  which  sprang  the  institutions  under  which 
we  live.  You  have  kindly  suggested  to  me  that  in  my  hands  is  the 
task  of  restoring  peace  to  the  present  distracted  condition  of  the 
country.  I  can  say  in  return,  sir,  that  all  the  political  sentiments  I 
entertain  have  been  drawn,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  draw  them, 
from  the  sentiments  which  originated  in  and  were  given  to  the  world 
from  this  hall.  I  have  never  had  a  feeling,  politically,  that  did  not 
spring  from  the  sentiments  embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence.  I  have  often  pondered  over  the  dangers  which  were  incurred 
by  the  men  who  assembled  here,  and  framed  and  adopted  that  Declara 
tion  of  Independence.  I  have  pondered  over  the  toils  that  were  en 
dured  by  the  officers  and  soldiers  of  the  army  who  achieved  that 
independence.  I  have  often  inquired  of  myself  what  great  principle 
or  idea  it  was  that  kept  this  confederacy  so  long  together.  It  was  not 
the  mere  matter  of  the  separation  of  the  colonies  from  the  mother-land, 
but  that  sentiment  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  which  gave 
liberty,  not  alone  to  the  people  of  this  country,  but,  I  hope,  to  the 
world,  for  all  future  time.  It  was  that  which  gave  promise  that  in 
due  time  the  weight  would  be  lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  all  men. 
This  is  the  sentiment  embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Now,  my  fr'ends,  can  this  country  be  saved  upon  that  basis?  If  it 
can,  I  will  consider  myself  one  of  the  happiest  men  in  the  world  if  I 
can  help  to  save  it.  If  it  cannot  be  saved  upon  that  principle,  it  will 
be  truly  awful.  But  if  this  country  cannot  be  saved  without  giving  up 
that  principle,  I  was  about  to  say  I  would  rather  be  assassinated  on 
this  spot  than  surrender  it  Now,  in  my  view  of  the  present  aspect  of 
affairs,  there  need  be  no  bloodshed  or  war.  There  is  no  necessity  for 
it.  I  am  not  in  favor  of  such  a  course;  and  I  may  say  in  advance  that 
there  will  be  no  bloodshed  unless  it  be  forced  upon  the  government, 
and  then  it  will  be  compelled  to  act  in  self-defence. 

My  friends,  this  is  wholly  an  unexpected  speech,  and  I  did  not  ex 
pect  to  be  called  upon  to  say  a  word  when  I  came  here.  I  supposed 
it  was  merely  to  do  something  towards  raising  the  flag — I  may,  there 
fore,  have  said  something  indiscreet.  I  have  said  nothing  but  what  I 
am  willing  to  live  by,  and,  if  it  be  the  pleasure  of  Almighty  God,  die  by. 


508  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 


FIRST    INAUGURAL    ADDRESS. 
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

March  4,  1861. 

FELLOW  CITIZENS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES — In  compliance  with  a 
custom  as  old  as  the  government  itself,  I  appear  before  you  to  address 
you  briefly,  and  to  take  in  your  presence  the  oath  prescribed  by  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  to  be  taken  by  the  President  "before 
he  enters  on  the  execution  of  his  office." 

I  do  not  consider  it  necessary  at  present  for  me  to  discuss  those 
matters  of  administration  about  which  there  is  no  special  anxiety  or 
excitement. 

Apprehension  seems  to  exist,  among  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States,  that  by  the  accession  of  a  republican  administration  their  prop 
erty  and  their  peace  and  personal  security  are  to  be  endangered.  There 
has  never  been  any  reasonable  cause  for  such  apprehension.  Indeed,  the 
most  ample  evidence  to  the  contrary  has  all  the  while  existed  and  been 
open  to  their  inspection.  It  is  found  in  nearly  all  the  published 
speeches  of  him  who  now  addresses  you.  I  do  but  quote  from  one  of 
those  speeches  when  I  declare  that  "I  have  no  purpose,  directly  or 
indirectly,  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  states  where 
it  exists.  I  believe  I  have  no  lawful  right  to  do  so,  and  I  have  no  in- 
clmation  to  do  so."  Those  who  nominated  and  elected  me  did  so  with 
full  knowledge  that  I  had  made  this  and  many  similar  declarations, 
and  had  never  recanted  them.  And  more  than  'this,  they  placed  in  the 
platform  for  my  acceptance,  and  as  a  law  to  themselves  and  to  me,  the 
clear  and  emphatic  resolution  which  I  now  read  : — 

Resolved—  That  the  maintenance  inviolate  of  the  rights  of  the  states,  and  especi 
ally  the  right  of  each  state  to  order  and  control  its  own  domestic  institutions 
according  to  its  own  judgment  exclusively,  is  essential  to  the  balance  of  power  on 
which  the  perfection  and  endurance  of  our  political  fabric  depend,  and  we  denounce 
the  lawless  invasion  by  armed  force  of  the  soil  of  any  state  or  territory,  no  matter 
under  what  pretext,  as  among  the  gravest  of  crimes. 

I  now  reiterate  these  sentiments;  and,  in  doing  so,  I  only  press 
upon  the  public  attention  the  most  conclusive  evidence  of  which  the 
case  is  susceptible,  that  the  property,  peace,  and  security  of  no  section 
are  to  be  in  anywise  endangered  by  the  now  incoming  administration. 
I  add,  too,  that  all  the  protection  which,  consistently  with  the  Consti 
tution  and  the  laws,  can  be  given,  will  be  cheerfully  given  to  all  the 
states,  when  lawfully  demanded,  for  whatever  cause — as  cheerfully  to 
one  section  as  to  another. 

There  is  much  controversy  about  the  delivering  up  of  fugitives  from 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  509 

service  or  labor.     The  clause  I  now  read  is  as  plainly  written  in  the 
Constitution  as  any  other  of  its  provisions: — 

No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  state,  under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping 
into  another,  shall,  in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  he  discharge  I 
from  such  service  or  labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up  ou  claim  of  the  party  to  whom 
such  service  or  labor  may  be  due. 

It  is  scarcely  questioned  that  this  provision  was  intended  by  those 
who  made  it  for  the  reclaiming  of  what  we  call  fugitive  slaves;  and 
the  intention  of  the  lawgiver  is  the  law.  All  members  of  Congress 
swear  their  support  to  the  whole  Constitution — to  this  provision  as 
much  as  any  other.  To  the  proposition,  then,  that  slaves,  whose  cases 
come  within  the  terms  of  this  clause,  "shall  be  delivered  up,"  their 
oaths  are  unanimous.  Now,  if  they  would  make  the  effort  in  good 
temper,  could  they  not,  with  nearly  equal  unanimity,  frame  and  pass 
a  law  by  means  of  which  to  keep  good  that  unanimous  oath? 

There  is  some  difference  of  opinion  whether  this  clause  should  be 
enforced  by  national  or  by  state  authority;  but  surely  that  difference 
is  not  a  very  material  one.  If  the  slave  is  to  be  surrendered,  it  can  be 
of  but  little  consequence  to  him,  or  to  others,  by  which  authority  it  is 
done.  And  should  any  one,  in  any  case,  be  content  that  his  oath  shall 
go  unkept,  on  a  mere  unsubstantial  controversy  as  to  how  it  shall  be 
kept? 

Again,  in  any  law  upon  the  subject,  ought  not  all  the  safeguards  of 
liberty  known  in  civilized  and  human  jurisprudence  to  be  introduced, 
so  that  a  free  man  be  not,  in  any  case,  surrendered  as  a  slave  ?  And 
might  it  not  be  well,  at  the  same  time,  to  provide  by  law  for  the  en 
forcement  of  that  clause  in  the  Constitution  which  guarantees  that  "the 
citizens  of  each  state  shall  be  entitled  to  all  privileges  and  immunities 
of  citizens  in  the  several  states?" 

I  shall  take  the  official  oath  to-day  with  no  mental  reservation,  and 
with  no  purpose  to  construe  the  Constitution  or  laws  by  any  hypercriti 
cal  rule.  And  while  I  do  not  choose  now  to  specify  particular  acts  of 
Congress  as  proper  to  be  enforced,  I  do  suggest  that  it  will  be  much 
safer  for  all,  both  in  official  and  private  stations,  to  conform  to  and 
abide  by  all  those  acts  which  stand  unrepealed,  than  to  violate  any  of 
them,  trusting  to  find  impunity  in  having  them  held  to  be  unconstitu 
tional. 

It  is  seventy-two  years  since  the  first  inauguration  of  a  president 
under  our  national  constitution.  During  that  period,  fifteen  different 
and  greatly  distinguished  citizens  have,  in  succession,  administered 
the  executive  branch  of  the  government.  They  have  conducted  it 
through  many  perils,  and  generally  with  great  success.  Yet,  with  all 
this  scope  for  precedent.  I  now  enter  upon  the  same  task  for  the  brief 
constitutional  term  of  four  years,  under  great  and  peculiar  difficulty. 
A  disruption  of  the  Federal  Union,  heretofore  only  menaced,  is  now 
formidably  attempted. 


510  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

I  hold  that,  in  contemplation  of  universal  law,  and  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  the  union  of  these  states  is  perpetual.  Perpetuity  is  implied,  if 
not  expressed,  in  the  fundamental  law  of  all  national  governments. 
It  is  safe  to  assert  that  no  government  proper  ever  had  a  provision  in 
its  organic  law  for  its  own  termination.  Continue  to  execute  all  the 
express  provisions  of  our  national  government,  and  the  Union  will 
endure  forever — it  being  impossible  to  destroy  it,  except  by  some 
action  not  provided  for  in  the  instrument  itself. 

Again,  if  the  United  States  be  not  a  government  proper,  but  an 
association  of  states  in  the  nature  of  contract  merely,  can  it,  as  a  con 
tract,  be  peaceably  unmade  by  less  than  all  the  parties  who  made  it  ? 
One  party  to  a  contract  may  violate  it — break  it,  so  to  speak;  but  does 
it  not  require  all  to  lawfully  rescind  it  ? 

Descending  from  these  general  principles,  we  find  the  proposition 
that,  in  legal  contemplation,  the  Union  is  perpetual,  confirmed  by  the 
history  of  the  Union  itself.  The  Union  is  much  older  than  the  Con 
stitution.  It  was  formed  in  fact,  by  the  articles  of  association  in 
1774.  It  was  matured  and  continued  by  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence  in  1776.  It  was  further  matured,  and  the  faith  of  all  the  then 
thirteen  states  expressly  plighted  and  engaged  that  it  should  be  per 
petual,  by  the  articles  of  confederation  in  1778.  And,  finally,  in  1787, 
one  of  the  declared  objects  for  ordaining  and  establishing  the  Consti 
tution  was  "to  form  a  more  perfect  Union." 

But  if  destruction  of  the  Union,  by  one,  or  by  a  part  only,  of  the 
states,  be  lawfully  possible,  the  Union- is  less  perfect  than  before,  the 
Constitution  having  lost  the  vital  element  of  perpetuity. 

It  follows,  from  these  views,  that  no  state  upon  its  own  mere 
motion,  can  lawfully  get  out  of  the  Union;  that  resolves  and  ordinances 
to  that  effect  are  legally  void;  and  that  acts  of  violence  within  any  state 
or  states,  against  the  authority  of  the  United  States,  are  insurrection 
ary,  or  revolutionary,  according  to  circumstances. 

I,  therefore,  consider  that,  in  view  of  the  Constitution  and  the  laws, 
the  Union  is  unbroken,  and  to  the  extent  of  my  ability  I  shall  take 
care,  as  the  Constitution  itself  expressly  enjoins  upon  me,  that  the 
laws  of  the  Union  be  faithfully  executed  in  all  the  states.  Doing  this 
I  deem  to  be  only  a  simple  duty  on  my  part;  and  I  shall  perform  it,  so 
far  as  practicable,  unless  my  rightful  masters,  the  American  people, 
shall  withhold  the  requisite  means,  or,  in  some  authoritative  manner, 
direct  the  contrary.  I  trust  this  will  not  be  regarded  as  a  menace, 
but  only  as  the  declared  purpose  of  the  Union  that  it  will  constitution 
ally  defend  and  maintain  itself. 

In  doing  this  there  need  be  no  bloodshed  or  violence;  and  there  shall 
be  none,  unless  it  be  forced  upon  the  national  authority.  The  power 
confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold,  occupy,  and  possess  the  property 
and  places  belonging  to  the  government,  and  to  collect  the  duties  and 
imposts;  but  beyond  what  may  be  but  necessary  for  these  objects, 


ABRAHAM  LLVCOLX.  511 

there  will  be  no  invasion,  no  using  of  force  against  or  among  the  peo 
ple  anywhere.  Where  hostility  to  the  United  States  in  any  interior 
locality  shall  be  so  great  and  universal  as  to  prevent  competent 
resident  citizens  from  holding  the  federal  offices,  there  will  be  no 
attempt  to  force  obnoxious  strangers  among  the  people  for  that  object. 
While  the  strict  legal  right  may  exist  in  the  government  to  enforce  the 
exercise  of  these  offices,  the  attempt  to  do  so  would  be  so  irritating, 
and  so  nearly  impracticable  withal,  I  deem  it  better  to  forego,  for  the 
time,  the  uses  of  such  offices. 

The  mails,  unless  repelled,  will  continue  to  be  furnished  in  all  parts 
of  the  Union.  So  far  as  possible,  the  people  everywhere  shall  have 
that  sense  of  perfect  security  which  is  most  favorable  to  calm  thought 
and  reflection.  The  course  here  indicated  will  be  followed,  unless 
current  events  and  experience  shall  show  a  modification  or  change  to 
be  proper,  and  in  every  case  and  exigency  my  best  discretion  will  be 
exercised,  according  to  circumstances  actually  existing,  and  with  a 
view  and  a  hope  of  a  peaceful  solution  of  the  national  troubles,  and 
the  restoration  of  fraternal  sympathies  and  affections. 

That  there  are  persons  in  one  section  or  another  who  seek  to  destroy 
the  Union  at  all  events,  and  are  glad  of  any  pretext  to  do  it,  I  will 
neither  affirm  nor  deny;  but  if  there  be  such,  I  need  address  no  word 
to  them.  To  those,  however,  who  really  love  the  Union,  may  I  not 
speak  ? 

Before  entering  upon  so  grave  a  matter  as  the  destruction  of  our 
national  fabric,  with  all  its  benefits,  its  memories,  and  its  hopes,  would 
it  not  be  wise  to  ascertain  precisely  why  we  do  it?  Will  you  hazard 
so  desperate  a  step  while  there  is  any  possibility  that  any  portion  of 
the  ills  you  fly  from  have  no  real  existence  ?  Will  you,  while  the  cer 
tain  ills  you  fly  to  are  greater  than  all  the  real  ones  you  fly  from — will 
you  risk  the  commission  of  so  fearful  a  mistake? 

All  profess  to  be  content  in  the  Union,  if  all  constitutional  rights  can 
be  maintained.  Is  it  true,  then,  that  any  right,  plainly  written  in 
the  Constitution,  has  been  denied?  I  think  not.  Happily  the  human 
mind  is  so  constituted  that  no  party  can  reach  to  the  audacity  of  doing  this. 
Think,  if  you  can,  of  a  single  instance  in  which  a  plainly  written  pro 
vision  of  the  Constitution  has  ever  been  denied.  If,  by  the  mere  force 
of  numbers,  a  majority  should  deprive  a  minority  of  any  clearly  written 
constitutional  right,  it  might,  in  a  moral  point  of  view,  justify  revolu 
tion — certain  would  if  such  a  right  were  a  vital  one.  But  such  is  not 
our  case.  All  the  vital  rights  of  minorities  and  of  individuals  are  so 
plainly  assured  to  them  by  affirmation  and  negations,  guarantees  and 
prohibitions  in  the  Constitution,  that  controversies  never  arise  concern 
ing  them.  But  no  organic  law  can  ever  be  framed  with  a  provision 
specifically  applicable  to  every  question  which  may  occur  in  practical 
administration.  No  foresight  can  anticipate,  nor  any  document  of 
reasonable  length  contain,  express  provisions  for  all  possible  questions. 


512  A  M ERICA  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

Shall  fugitives  from  labor  be  surrendered  by  national  or  by  state 
authority  ?  The  Constitution  does  not  expressly  say.  May  Congress 
prohibit  slavery  in  the  territories?  The  Constitution  does  not  ex 
pressly  say.  Must  Congress  protect  slavery  in  the  territories?  The 
Constitution  does  not  expressly  say. 

From  questions  of  this  class  spring  all  our  constitutional  contro 
versies,  and  we  divide  upon  them  into  majorities  and  minorities.  If 
the  minority  will  not  acquiesce,  the  majority  must,  or  the  government 
must  cease.  There  is  no  other  alternative;  for  continuing  the  govern 
ment  is  acquiescence  on  one  side  or  the  other.  If  a  minority  in  such 
case  will  secede  rather  than  acquiesce,  they  make  a  precedent  which,  in 
turn,  will  divide  and  ruin  them;  for  a  minority  of  their  own  will  secede 
from  them  whenever  a  majority  refuses  to  be  controlled  by  such 
minority.  For  instance,  why  may  not  any  portion  of  a  new  con 
federacy,  a  year  or  two  hence,  arbitrarily  secede  again,  precisely  as 
portions  of  the  present  Union  now  claim  to  secede  from  it?  All  who 
cherish  disunion  sentiments  are  now  being  educated  to  the  exact  tem 
per  of  doing  this. 

Is  there  such  perfect  identity  of  interests  among  the  states  to  com 
pose  a  new  Union,  as  to  produce  harmony  only,  and  prevent  renewed 
secession  ? 

Plainly,  the  central  idea  of  secession  is  the  essence  of  anarchy.  A 
majority  held  in  restraint  by  constitutional  checks  and  limitations,  and 
always  changing  easily  with  deliberate  changes  of  popular  opinions 
and  sentiments,  is  the  only  true  sovereign  of  a  free  people.  Whoever 
rejects  it,  does,  of  necessity,  fly  to  anarchy  or  to  despotism.  Unanimity 
is  impossible;  the  rule  of  a  minority,  as  a  permanent  arrangement,  is 
wholly  inadmissible;  so  that,  rejecting  the  majority  principle,  anarchy 
or  despotism,  in  some  form,  is  all  that  is  left. 

I  do  not  forget  the  position  assumed  by  some,  that  constitutional 
questions  are  to  be  decided  by  the  Supreme  Court;  nor  do  I  deny  that 
such  decisions  must  be  binding,  in  any  case,  upon  the  parties  to  a 
suit,  as  to  the  object  of  that  suit,  while  they  are  also  entitled  to  very 
high  respect  and  consideration  in  all  parallel  cases,  by  all  other  de 
partments  of  the  government.  And  while  it  is  obviously  possible  that 
such  decisions  may  be  erroneous  in  any  given  case,  still,  the  evil  effect  f: 
following  it  being  limited  to  that  particular  case,  with  the  chance  that 
it  may  be  overruled,  and  never  become  a  precedent  for  other  cases, 
can  better  be  borne  than  could  the  evils  of  a  different  practice.  At  the 
same  time,  the  candid  citizen  must  confess  that  if  the  policy  of  the 
government  upon  vital  questions  affecting  the  whole  people,  is  to  be 
irrevocably  fixed  by  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  instant  they 
are  made  in  ordinary  litigation  between  parties  in  personal  actions, 
the  people  will  have  ceased  to  be  their  own  rulers,  having  to  that  ex 
tent  practically  resigned  their  government  into  the  hands  of  that  emi 
nent  tribunal. 


•  A  BRA  II A  M  LLYCOL.V.  5 1 3 

Nor  is  there  in  this  view  any  assault  upon  the  Court  or  the  Judges. 
It  is  a  duty  from  which  they  may  not  shrink  to  decide  cases  properly 
brought  before  them,  and  it  is  no  fault  of  theirs  if  others  seek  to  turn 
their  decisions  to  political  purposes.  One  section  of  our  country  be 
lieves  slavery  is  right,  and  ought  to  be  extended,  while  the  other  be 
lieves  it  is  wrong,  and  ought  not  to  be  extended.  This  is  the  only 
substantial  dispute.  The  fugitive  slave  clause  of  the  Constitution,  and 
the  law  for  the  suppression  of  the  foreign  slave-trade,  are  each  as  well 
enforced,  perhaps,  as  any  law  can  ever  be  in  a  community  where  the 
moral  sense  of  the  people  imperfectly  supports  the  law  itself.  The 
great  body  of  the  people  abide  by  the  dry  legal  obligation  in  both 
cases,  and  a  few  break  over  in  each.  This,  I  think,  cannot  be  per 
fectly  cured;  and  it  would  be  worse,  in  both  cases,  after  the  separation 
of  the  sections  than  before.  The  foreign  slave-trade,  now  imperfectly 
suppressed,  would  be  ultimately  revived,  without  restriction,  in  one 
section;  while  fugitive  slaves,  now  only  partially  surrendered,  would 
not  be  surrendered  at  all  by  the  other. 

Physically  speaking,  we  cannot  separate.  We  cannot  remove  our 
respective  sections  from  each  other,  nor  build  an  impassable  wall  be 
tween  them.  A  husband  and  wife  may  be  divorced,  and  go  out  of  the 
presence  and  beyond  the  reach  of  each  other;  but  the  different  parts 
of  our  country  cannot  do  this.  They  cannot  but  remain  face  to  face; 
and  intercourse,  either  amicable  or  hostile,  must  continue  between 
them.  It  is  impossible  then,  to  make  that  intercourse  more  advanta 
geous  or  more  satisfactory  after  separation  than  before.  Can  aliens 
make  treaties  easier  than  friends  can  make  laws  ?  Can  treaties  be 
more  faithfully  enforced  between  aliens  than  laws  can  among  friends? 
Suppose  you  go  to  war,  you  cannot  fight  always;  and  when,  after  much 
loss  on  both  sides,  and  no  gain  on  either,  you  cease  fighting,  the  iden 
tical  old  questions,  as  to  terms  of  intercourse,  are  again  upon  you. 

This  country,  with  its  institutions,  belongs  to  the  people  who  inhabit 
it.  Whenever  they  shall  grow  weary  of  the  existing  government,  they 
can  exercise  their  constitutional  right  of  amending  it,  or  their  revolu 
tionary  right  to  dismember  or  overthrow  it.  I  cannot  be  ignorant  of 
the  fact  that  many  worthy  and  patriotic  citizens  are  desirous  of  having 
the  National  Constitution  amended.  While  I  make  no  recommenda 
tion  of  amendment,  I  fully  recognize  the  rightful  authority  of  the 
people  over  the  whole  subject,  to  be  exercised  in  either  of  the  modes 
prescribed  in  the  instrument  itself,  and  I  should,  under  existing  cir 
cumstances,  favor,  rather  than  oppose,  a  fair  opportunity  being  af 
forded  the  people  to  act  upon  it.  I  will  venture  to  add,  that  to  me  the 
convention  mode  seems  preferable,  in  that  it  allows  amendments  to 
originate  with  the  people  themselves,  instead  of  only  permitting  them 
to  take  or  reject  propositions  originated  by  others,  not  especiallychosen 
for  the  purpose,  and  which  might  not  be  precisely  such  as  they  would 
wish  to  cither  accept  or  refuse.  I  understand  a  proposed  amendment 


5  1 4  AMERICAN  PA  TRIO TISM. 

to  the  Constitution — which  amendment,  however,  I  have  not  seen — 
has  passed  Congress,  to  the  effect  that  the  Federal  Government  shall 
never  interfere  with  the  domestic  institutions  of  the  states,  including 
that  of  persons  held  to  service.  To  avoid  misconstruction  of  what  I 
have  said,  I  depart  from  my  purpose  not  to  speak  of  particular  amend 
ments,  so  far  as  to  say  that,  holding  such  a  provision  now  to  be  im 
plied  constitutional  law,  I  have  no  objections  to  its  being  made  ex 
press  and  irrevocable. 

The  chief  magistrate  derives  all  his  authority  from  the  people,  and 
they  luive  conferred  none  upon  him  to  fix  terms  for  the  separation  of 
the  states.  The  people  themselves  can  do  this  also  if  they  choose; 
but  the  executive,  as  such,  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  His  duty  is  to 
administer  the  present  government  as  it  came  to  his  hands,  and  to 
transmit  it,  unimpaired  by  him,  to  his  successor. 

Why  should  there  not  be  a  patient  confidence  in  the  ultimate  justice 
of  the  people  ?  Is  there  any  better  or  equal  hope  in  the  world  ?  In 
our  present  differences,  is  either  party  without  faith  of  being  in  the 
right  ?  If  the  Almighty  Ruler  of  Nations,  with  his  eternal  truth  and 
justice,  be  on  your  side  of  the  North,  or  on  yours  of  the  South,  that 
truth  and  that  justice  will  surely  prevail,  by  the  judgment  of  this  great 
tribunal  of  the  American  people. 

By  the  frame  of  the  government  under  which  we  live,  the  same  peo 
ple  have  wisely  given  their  public  servants  but  little  power  for  mis 
chief,  and  have,  with  equal  wisdom,  provided  for  the  return  of  that 
little  to  their  own  hands  at  very  short  intervals.  While  the  people 
retain  their  virtue  and  vigilance,,  no  administration,  by  any  extreme 
of  wickedness  or  folly,  can  very  seriously  injure  the  government  in  the 
short  space  of  four  years. 

My  countrymen,  one  and  all,  think  calmly  and  well  upon  this  whole 
subject.  Nothing  valuable  can  be  lost  by  taking  time.  If  there  be  an 
object  to  hurry  any  of  you  in  hot  haste  to  a  step  which  you  would 
never  take  deliberately,  that  object  will  be  frustrated  by  taking  time; 
but  no  good  object  can  be  frustrated  by  it.  Such  of  you  as  are  now 
dissatisfied,  still  have  the  old  Constitution  unimpaired,  and,  on  the 
sensitive  point,  the  laws  of  your  own  framing  under  it;  while  the  new 
administration  will  have  no  immediate  power,  if  it  would,  to  change 
either.  If  it  were  admitted  that  you  who  are  dissatisfied  hold  the  right 
side  in  the  dispute,  there  still  is  no  single  good  reason  for  precipitate 
action.  Intelligence,  patriotism,  Christianity,  and  a  firm  reliance  on 
Him  who  has  never  yet  forsaken  this  favored  land,  are  still  competent 
to  adjust,  in  the  best  way,  all  our  present  difficulty. 

In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow  countrymen,  and  not  in  mine, 
is  the  momentous  issues  of  civil  war.  The  government  will  not  assail 
you. 

You  can  have  no  conflict  without  being  yourselves  the  aggressors. 
You  have  no  oath  registered  in  heaven  to  destroy  the  government; 


DANIEL    STEVENS  DICKINSON.       .  515 

while  I  shall  have  the  most  solemn  one  to  "  preserve,  protect,  and  de 
fend  "  it. 

I  am  loathe  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends.  We  must 
not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not 
break  our  bonds  of  affection. 

The  mystic  cord  of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battle-field  and 
patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad 
land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as 
surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature. 


UNION  MASS  MEETING. 
DANIEL    STEVENS    DICKINSON. 

New  York,  April  20.  1861. 

I  am  invited,  Mr.  President,  and  my  fellow-citizens,  to  attend  and 
address  this  meeting,  in  the  language  of  its  call,  "without  regard  to 
previous  political  opinions  or  associations,  to  express  our  sentiments 
in  the  present  crisis  in  our  national  affairs,  and  our  determination  to 
uphold  the  government  of  our  country,  and  maintain  the  authority  of 
the  Constitution  and  laws  "  I  embraced  the  opportunity  with  alacrity, 
and  have  travelled  two  hundred  miles,  and  upwards,  this  morning, 
that  I  might  do  so,  for  I  look  with  extreme  apprehension  and  alarm 
upon  the  danger  which  threatens  us  as  a  whole,  recently  a  united 
people.  I  would  know  no  sections  in  this  great  material  heritage  of 
freedom,  which  stretches  from  ocean  to  ocean,  from  the  far  frozen 
north  to  where  prevail  the  gentle  breezes  of  the  tropics;  no  divisions 
or  strife  among  or  between  children  of  a  common  father,  and  brothers 
of  the  same  household;  but  the  demon  of  discord  has  inaugarated  his 
fearful  court  in  our  midst,  and  the  crisis  is  to  be  met  like  every  other 
vicissitude. 

A  somewhat  extended  service  in  the  national  councils,  at  a  period 
of  unusual  interest,  gave  me  an  opportunity  for  much  and  mature  re 
flection,  upon  the  relations  between  the  North  and  the  South;  upon 
the  duties  each  section  owed  to  itself  and  the  other,  and  to  the  cause 
of  free  government,  under  a  hallowed  compact,  under  the  constitu 
tional  guarantees  secured,  and  that  fraternal  regard  which,  by  every 
consideration  that  could  influence  civilized  and  Christian  men,  each 
section  and  its  people  should  at  all  times  cultivate  toward  the  other. 
I  have  looked  upon  all,  as  regards  the  Union,  its  value  and  its  pre 
servation,  as  the  inheritors  of  the  same  catholic  faith;  and  though  scat 
tered  over  an  area  so  vast,  divided  into  sections,  subdivided  into  num 
erous  states,  and  the  two  sections  committed  to  different  systems  of 
industry,  as  united  in  one  great  interest,  as  essential  to  each  other  t$ 


5^6  AMERICAN'  PATRIOT  ISM. 

promote  the  common  enjoyment;  and  as  bound  together  to  the  same 
great  and  immortal  destiny.  None  of  these  views  of  what  should,  and 
ought  to  be,  and  might  have  been,  have  been  changed;  but  recent  un 
fortunate  events  have  served  to  confirm  them  beyond  the  shadow  of  a 
doubt,  and  to  increase  regrets  that  efforts  costing  so  little,  and  of  such 
incalculable  value,  could  not  have  been  put  forth  before  it  was  too 
kite. 

But  now,  in  common  with  every  lover  of  his  country,  I  am  called  to 
lament  that  we  should  be  aroused  from  the  dream  of  a  people's  secur 
ity,  happiness,  and  glory,  by  a  conflict  of  blood.  Until  recently,  I 
had  hoped  that  time,  and  a  returning  sense  of  patriotism,  a  recurrence 
to  the  scenes  and  trials  of  the  Revolution,  a  thought  of  the  great  names 
and  greater  memories  of  those  who  wrought  out  the  liberties  we  have 
possessed  and  should  enjoy,  and  above  all  a  sense  of  duty  we  owed  to 
ourselves,  to  each  other,  to  our  country  and  its  Constitution,  to  our  de 
scendants,  to  the  cause  of  liberty  throughout  the  earth,  would  bear 
this  great  question  far  above  and  beyond  the  field  of  vitiated  and  de 
mo  rali'/ed  politics,  and  save  the  Union;  not  in  mere  form,  but  the 
Union  of  our  fathers,  in  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution;  the  Union  pur 
chased  by  the  blood  poured  out  at  Lexington,  Saratoga,  and  Yorktown, 
the  Union  of  the  great  spirits  of  '76,  the  Union  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes, 
which,  though  torn  and  disfigured,  is  dearer  than  ever;  the  Union  over 
v/hich  every  patriot  in  every  section  can  exclaim,  in  the  language  of 
the  British  poet,  "  With  all  thy  faults,  I  love  thee  still'"  the  Union 
which  can  never  be  destroyed  in  the  affections  of  the  American  peo 
ple.  Yes, 

"  You  may  break,  you  may  shatter  the  vase  if  you  will, 
But  the  scent  of  the  roses  will  hang  round  it  still." 

But  these  anticipations  have  not  been  and  are  not  to  be  realized. 

Six  months  since,  we  were  enjoying  unexampled  success,  now,  ruin 
runs  riot  over  this  fair  land,  and  all  for  madness.  Numerous  States 
have  passed  ordinances  of  secession  from  the  Union,  and  have  seized 
the  federal  property  within  .their  reach;  they  repudiate  and  disown  its 
authority,  assault  its  flag,  and  defy  its  power;  have  deliberately,  and 
with  an  overpowering  force,  attacked  and  reduced  a  partially  garrison 
ed  and  unoffending  fortification,  because  they  seemed  to  regard  the 
gallant  Major  Anderson,  with  his  loyal  men,  who  reposed  in  peace,  a 
kind  of  minister  plenipotentiary  of  the  United  States,  near,  and  rather 
too  near  the  government  of  South  Carolina,  and  now  they  threaten, 
as  is  asserted  upon  what  seems  good  authority,  to  march  against  the 
Federal  Capital.  Troops  marching  to  its  defence  have  been  murdered, 
and  war  is  therefore  upon  us,  with  all  its  terrible  realities;  a  civil,  in 
testine  war,  against  and  between  brethren  ! 

It  were  profitless  to  inquire  for  original  or  remote  causes  ;  it  is  no 
time  for  indecision  or  inaction  ;  it  is  no  time  for  crimination  or  re- 


DANIEL   STEVENS  DICKINSON.  517 

crimination,  or  for  reviving  partisan  issues  ;  it  is  no  time  to  inquire 
whose  hand  holds  the  helm  or  who  placed  him  there,  if  as  prescribed 
by  the  Constitution  ;  or  by  what  name  he  is  known  in  the  political 
jargon  of  the  day.  But  the  only  question  should  be  :  Does  he  pro 
pose  to  steer  the  good  ship  of  state  according  to  the  chart  of  the  Con 
stitution,  between  the  Scylla  and  Charybdis  which  threaten  her  path 
way  ;  and  will  he  uphold  the  Constitution  and  administer  the  laws 
with  the  firmness,  justice,  and  forbearance,  with  a  wisdom,  mercy,  and 
discretion,  becoming  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  such  a  people!  in  such 
an  exigency  ?  And  if  he  does  that,  and  that  only,  he  should  be,  and 
will  be,  triumphantly  sustained  ;  not  only  by  political  parties  extant 
or  obsolete,  nor  time-serving  politicians,  but  by  the  patriotic  pulsa 
tions  of  the  great  popular  heart.  Our  troubles  are  chargeable  as  well 
to  a  demoralized  sentiment  as  to  sectional  disturbance.  The  country 
is  cursed  with  the  "cankers  of  a  calm  world  and  a  long  peace  ;"  rank 
with  mean  ambition  ;  swarming  with  office-hunters  and  plethoric  with 
treasury-mongers.  Like  the  plagues  of  Egypt,  they  have  filled  the 
beds  and  boards  and  kneading-troughs  of  the  Republic,  and  poisoned 
the  very  foundations  of  political  morality. 

My  desires  and  efforts,  and  anxieties  and  prayers,  have  been  for 
peace  ;  that  everything  might  be  yielded  that  could  be,  consistently 
with  a  nation's  dignity  and  honor  (and  our  great  Republic  can  yield 
much  to  a  portion  of  its  erring  people),  rather  than  provoke  or  even 
permit  a  conflict  of  hostile  forces  ;  and  even  yet,  I  invoke  the  benign 
spirit  of  conciliation  !  But  the  government  must  arm  ;  and  that  in  a 
manner  commensurate  with  its  vast  resources,  and  becoming  the  la 
mentable  occasion  ;  yet  it  should  put  on  its  armor  for  preservation, 
not  for  destruction  ;  not  for  aggressive  war,  but  for  defensive  peace  ; 
not  for  subjugation  or  coercion,  but  to  arrest  tumult,  lawlessness,  and 
disorder  ;  not  to  despoil  others,  but  to  keep  its  own  ;  to  maintain  the 
supremacy  of  the  Constitution,  and  to  vindicate  the  laws  ;  to  put  down 
insurrection,  and  to  repel  invasion  ;  to  maintain  the  power  and  dig 
nity  of  the  nation  and  preserve  its  flag  inviolate  ;  to  save,  if  saved  it 
can  be.  the  Union,  already  disserved,  from  the  final  overthrow  and 
destruction  with  which  it  is  menaced.  The  contemplation  of  even  the 
most  brilliant  successes  upon  the  field  of  blood,  brings  me  in  this  con 
troversy  only  heart-sickness  and  sorrow  ;  for  I  cannot  forget  that  it  is 
a  war  between  those  who  should  have  loved  and  cheered  and  consoled 
each  other  along  the  bleak  and  desolate  pathway  of  life's*  perilous  pil 
grimage,  and  that  we  may  say  of  him  who  falls  in  the  wicked  and  un 
natural  strife : 

"  Another's  sword  has  laid  him  low  ; 

Another's  and  another's, 
And  every  hand  that  dealt  the  blow, 
Ah  me  !  it  was  a  brother's." 


5  J  8  A  M ERICA  X  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

But  I  would  assert  the  power  of  the  government  over  those  who 
owe  it  allegiance  and  attempt  its  overthrow,  as  Brutus  put  his  signet 
to  the  death-  warrant  of  his  son,  that  I  might  exclaim  with  him,  "Jus 
tice  is  satisfied,  and  Rome  is  free."  I  would  defend  our  government, 
and  its  territory,  and  its  citadel,  that  we  may  not  weep  like  women 
over  that  we  failed  to  defend  like  men. 

In  this  fraternal  strife,  let  us  by  no  means  forget  the  numerous  pa 
triotic  hearts  at  the  South,  that  beat  responsive  to  the  Union  senti 
ment.  How  long  and  how  faithfully  they  have  endured;  how  much  of 
assault  and  contumely  they  have  withstood  ;  what  interests,  political, 
social,  and  material,  they  have  sacrificed  ;  how  long  and  how  faith 
fully  they  have  buffeted  the  angry  waves  which  have  beat  around 
them  !  They  have  loved  and  cherished  the  Union,  and  have  clung 
with  a  deathlike  tenacity  to  the  pillars  of  the  Constitution,  to  uphold 
and  sustain  it ;  and  may  God  bless  them.  Let  us  remember  them  in 
this,  the  evil  day  of  our  common  country,  and  do  nothing  to  cast  im 
pediments  in  the  way  of  their  patriotic  progress  and  endurance. 

The  action  of  our  own  noble  state  may  be  potential  in  the  gloomy 
crisis.  She  has  power,  and  must  interpose  it  ;  wealth,  and  must  prof 
fer  it  ;  men,  and  must  rally  them  to  duty;  and  should  employ  her 
mighty  energies  to  silence  this  accursed  din  of  arms  and  tumult  and 
murder,  at  an  early  moment,  in  the  name  of  the  constitution  and  the 
Union,  of  justice,  forbearance,  humanity,  and  peace. 

"  'Tis  not  the  whole  of  life  to  live, 
Nor  all  of  death  to  die." 

And  this  commercial  emporium  of  the  western  hemisphere,  the  off 
spring  of  free  government  and  unrestricted  enterprise,  under  a  glor 
ious  Union;  where  the  elements  of  trade  concentre  and  are  diffused  ; 
great  in  natural  advantages  and  material  wealth  ;  great  in  architec 
tural  magnificence  and  commercial  renown;  great  in  an  active  and  en 
terprising  population,  in  the  arts  and  sciences,  in  her  institutions  of 
religion,  charity,  and  learning  ;  but  greater  in  her  mighty  moral  ener 
gies  for  good,  when  the  waves  of  madness  heave  mountain  high,  and 
threaten  universal  destruction.  She  can,  in  the  plenitude  of  her 
power,  speaking  with  united  voice,  do  much  to  silence  the  war-whoops 
which  Christian  civilization  has  borrowed,  in  this  day  of  light,  from 
savage  barbarism.  She  can  do  much  to  roll  back  and  calm  the  agita 
tion  of  the  waters  with  the  stern  commands  of  peace.  Then  let  her 
stretch  forth  her  strong  arm  in  support  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
Union.  Let  her  sustain  the  government  in  its  lawful  authority  ;  in 
upholding  inviolate  our  glorious  flag,  emblem  of  a  glorious  Union  ;  in 
defending  its  territory,  in  preserving  the  Union,  if  possible,  from  fur 
ther  disruption  and  destruction,  and  in  reclaiming,  by  its  measures  of 
justice  and  wisdom,  every  disaffected  state  to  the  Union  it  once  loved, 
and  cherished,  and  adorned.  And  if,  when  all  efforts  at  conciliation 


DA AV 'EL    STEl'E.VS  DJCA'/XSOX.  5/9 

have  failed,  and  the  surges  of  intestine  passions  shall  run  more  madly 
still,  and  armed  forces  must  meet  for  destruction  upon  the  field  of 
battle  ;  when  it  is  covered  with  the  dead  and  dying,  and  the  shrieks  of 
the  wounded  are  ascending  to  heaven  ;  let  us  be  able  to  exclaim  with 
Caesar,  when  he  saw  the  fields  of  Pharsalia  strewn  with  his  fallen 
countrymen,  "  They  would  have  it  so  !" 

The  states  of  the  South  alleged  common  grievances  against  the  free 
states,  and  suggested  the  necessity  of  further  guaranties.  There  was 
a  large  and  powerful  party  in  the  free  states  in  sympathy  with  them 
in  this  demand,  and  if  all  the  Southern  states  had  moved  with  solemn 
deliberation,  and  in  concert,  it  is  obvious  that  satisfactory  guaranties 
would  have  been  provided,  and  civilization  and  Christianity  and 
freedom  have  been  spared  the  disgrace  which  must  disfigure  the  page 
of  history,  so  long  as  ink  shall  stand  a  faithful  sentinel  on  paper,  and 
darken  the  dreamy  shadows  of  tradition,  when  history  shall  have  faded 
away.  But  some  rushed  hastily  to  pass  ordinances  of  secession  with 
out  waiting  for  the  concert  of  aggrieved  sisters,  or  even  the  sanction 
of  their  own  people  ;  some  seized  the  Federal  property  within  their 
reach,  and  armed  for  avowed  conflict,  and  menaced  the  Federal  gov 
ernment,  and  thus  reduced  all  chances  for  conciliation,  either  for 
restoration  or  final  peaceful  separation.  One  irritation  has  provoked 
another;  one  false  and  impetuous  movement  has  initiated  another, 
until  all  rational  hope  of  peace  has  left  us,  I  fear,  forever,  and  we  must 
drink,  drink  to  the  dregs,  the  cup  prepared  for  us.  There  was  nothing 
in  the  relations  of  the  two  sections,  unfortunate  as  they  were,  which 
ever  rendered  a  resort  to  arms  either  justifiable  or  necessary;  and  the 
inauguration  of  war  over  questions  capable  of  pacific  adjustment,  will 
be  condemned  and  execrated  wherever  civilisation  finds  a  resting- 
place;  and  the  widow's  wail  and  the  orphan's  tears  will  haunt  the  last 
moments  of  his  existence  who  produced  it. 

For  myself,  in  our  federal  relations,  I  know  but  one  section,  one 
Union,  one  flag,  one  government.  That  section  embraces  every 
state;  that  Union  is  the  Union  sealed  with  the  blood  and  consecrated 
by  the  tears  of  the  revolutionary  struggle;  that  flag  is  the  flag  known 
and  honored  in  every  sea  under  heaven;  which  has  borne  off  glorious 
victory  from  many  a  bloody  battle-field,  and  yet  stirs  with  warmer  and 
quicker  pulsations  the  heart's  blood  of  every  true  American,  when  he 
looks  upon  its  Stars  and  Stripes  wherever  it  waves.  That  government 
is  the  government  of  Washington,  and  Adams,  and  Jefferson,  and 
Jackson;  a  government  which  has  shielded  and  protected  not  only  us, 
but  God's  oppressed  children  who  have  gathered  under  its  wings  from 
every  portion  of  the  globe;  a  government  which,  from  humble  begin 
nings,  has  borne  us  forward  with  fabulous  celerity,  and  made  us  one 
of  the  great  and  prosperous  powers  of  earth.  The  union  of  these 
states  was  a  bright  vision  of  my  rtirly  years,  the  pride  of  my  manhood, 
the  ambition  of  my  public  service.  I  have  sacrificed  upon  its  altar  the 


520  AMERICA. \-    PATRIOTISM. 

best  energies  and  choicest  hopes  of  a  life  checkered  by  vicissitudes  and 
trial.  I  had  believed  the  contemplation  of  its  beauties  would  be  the 
companion  of  approaching  age,  and  the  beguiler  of  my  vacant  and 
solitary  hours.  And  now  that  its  integrity  is  menaced,  its  fair  pro 
portions  disfigured,  it  is  still  dear  to  my  heart,  as  a  great  fountain  of 
wisdom,  from  which  incalculable  blessings  have  flowed.  I  have  re 
joiced  with  it  in  its  hey-day  of  success  and  triumph,  and  will,  by  the 
grace  of  God,  stand  by  it  in  its  hour  of  darkness  and  peril,  and  by 
those  who  uphold  it  in  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution.  When  the  timid 
falter,  and  the  faithless  fly;  when  the  skies  lower  and  the  winds  ho\vl, 
the  storm  descends,  and  the  tempests  beat;  when  the  lightnings  flash, 
the  thunders  roar,  the  waves  dash  high,  and  the  good  ship  Union 
creaks  and  groans  with  the  expiring  throes  of  dissolution,  I  will  cling 
to  her  still  as  the  last  refuge  of  hope  from  the  fury  of  the  storm;  and 
if  she  goes  down,  I  will  go  down  with  her,  rather  than  revive  to  tell 
the  story  of  her  ignoble  end.  I  will  sustain  that  flag  of  Stars  and 
Stripes,  recently  rendered  more  glorious  by  Anderson,  his  officers  and 
men,  wherever  it  waves — over  the  sea  or  over  the  land.  And  when  it 
shall  be  despoiled  and  disfigured,  I  will  rally  around  it  still  as  the  star- 
spangled  banner  of  my  fathers  and  my  country;  aud  so  long  as  a 
single  stripe  can  be  discovered,  or  a  single  star  shall  glimmer  from 
the  surrounding  darkness,  I  will  cheer  it  as  the  emblem  of  a  nation's 
glory  and  a  nation's  hope.  And  could  I  see  again  my  beloved  and  bleeding 
and  distracted  country  all  peacefully  reposing  beneath  it,  as  in  days  gone 
by,  I  could  almost  swear,  with  the  devoted  Jephtha,  that  infatuated 
leader  of  the  hosts  of  Israel,  that  "  I  would  sacrifice  to  the  Lord  the 
first  living  thing  of  my  household  that  I  should  meet  on  my  return  from 
victory!" 


ADDRESS  AT  AMHERST. 

DANIEL   STEVENS   DICKINSON. 

June  n,  1861. 

We  are  admonished  by  "  the  divinity  that  stirs  within  us,"  as  well 
as  by  all  history  and  experience  in  human  affairs,  that  there  are  prin 
ciples  which  can  never  be  subverted,  truths  which  never  die.  The 
religion  of  a  Saviour,  who  at  his  nativity  was  cradled  on  the  straw 
pallet  of  destitution;  who  in  declaring  and  enforcing  his  divine  mis 
sion,  was  sustained  by  obscure  fishermen;  who  was  spit  upon  by  the 
rabble,  persecuted  by  power,  and  betrayed  by  treachery  to  envy,  has, 
by  its  inherent  forces,  subdued,  civilized,  and  conquered  a.  world;  not 
by  the  tramp  of  hostile  armies,  the  roar  of  artillery,  or  the  stirring  airs 
of  martial  music,  but  by  the  swell  of  the  same  heavenly-  harmonies 
which  aroused  the  drowsy  shepherds  at  the  rock-founded,  city  of  Beth- 


DA  NIEL    S  '1  'E  }  '£{YS  DJCA'IXSON.  5  2 1 

lehem,  proclaiming  in  their  dulcet  warblings,  "peace  on  earth  and 
good  will  toward  men;"  not  by  flashes  of  contending  steel,  amidst  the 
bad  passions  of  the  battle-field,  the  shrieks  of  the  dying  and  the  flames 
of  subjugated  cities,  but  by  the  glowing  light  which  shot  athwart  the 
firmament  and  illumined  the  whole  heavens  at  his  advent.  Thus  was 
ushered  in  that  memorable  epoch  in  the  world's  eventful  history,  the 
Christian  era,  an  era  which  closed  one  volume  in  the  record  of  man's 
existence,  and  opened  another;  which  drew  aside  the  dark  curtain  of 
death  and  degradation,  exhibiting  to  life's  worn  and  weary  pilgrim 
along  the  wastes  of  ignorance  and  barbarism,  new  domains  of  hope 
and  happiness  for  exploration  and  improvement;  new  fields  for  him 
to  subdue  and  fertilize  and  reap,  and  new  triumphs  for  him  to  achieve 
in  the  cause  of  human  regeneration.  And  let  him  who  fails  to  esti 
mate  the  priceless  value  of  this  divine  reformation,  in  a  temporal 
sense  alone,  contrast  the  condition  of  man,  wherever  Christian 
civilization  has  travelled,  with  a  people  groping  amidst  the  degrading 
darkness  of  idolatry,  or  bowing  beneath  some  imposture  stiil  more 
heaven-daring  and  impious. 

Second  only  in  interest  and  importance  to  the  religion  of  Him  who 
spake  as  never  man  spake,  is  that  system  of  political  truth  which  pro 
claims  the  doctrine  of  man's  equality,  and  elevates  him  in  the  scale  of 
being  to  that  dignity  of  station  which  Heaven  destined  him  to  fill.  For 
untold  centuries,  despotism  and  king-craft  had  asserted  dominion  over 
the  world's  masses.  Every  attempt  to  break  the  fetters  which  held  a 
people  in  vassalage  had  resulted  in  riveting  them  more  securely  upon 
the  limbs  of  servitude.  Labor  had  groaned  under  the  exactions,  and  the 
spirit  had  prayed  long  and  fervently  for  deliverance,  but  in  vain.  The 
failure  to  correct  organizations  so  false,  and  vicious  and  cruel,  and  to 
restore  the  power  swayed  by  the  tyrannic  few  to  the  plundered  many, 
had  been  written  in  human  blood,  until 

"  Hope  fora  season  bade  the  world  farewell." 

But  our  fathers,  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  freedom  which  a  free 
respiration  of  the  air  of  the  New  World  inspired,  and  goaded  to  des 
peration  by  the  exactions  of  oppression,  rolled  the  stone  from  the  door 
of  the  sepulchre,  where  crucified  and  entombed  liberty  was  slumbering, 
end  it  arose  in  light  and  life  to  cheer,  and  bless  and  give  hope  to  the 
down-trodden  humanity  of  earth, to  emancipate  the  immortal  mind  from 
the  slavery  by  which  it  was  degraded  They  asserted  the  simplest  yet 
the  sublimest  of  political  truths,  that  all  men  were  created  equal.  They 
arraigned  at  the  bar  of  a  Christian  world,  trembling,  tyrannous,  stulti 
fied  legitimacy,  while  asserting  its  impious  dogma  of  Heaven-descended 
rulers,  and  they  repudiated  and  laughed  to  scorn  the  fraudulent 
theories,  base  pretensions,  and  vain  ceremonials  of  its  political  hier 
archy.  They  declared  in  its  broadest  sense  the  right  of  man's  self- 
government,  and  his  capacity  for  its  exercise;  and  sought  release  from 


522  A  M ERICA  N  1>A  TRIO  7  'AS'J7. 

a  proud  and  haughty  monarchy  that  they  might  enjoy  upon  this  con 
tinent  a  nation's  independence,  and  found  a  system  which  recognized 
the  equality  of  men,  in  which  their  theories  should  be  established. 
They  trusted  the  future  of  their  "lives,  their  fortunes,  and  their 
sacred  honor"  to  the  chances  of  a  great  experiment;  and  while  the 
timid  faltered,  the  treacherous  betrayed,  the  mercenary  schemed,  and 
the  unbelieving  derided,  far-seeing  patriotism  pressed  forward  with  an 
eye  of  faith,  upon  its  mission  of  progress,  until  hope  gave  place  to 
fruition;  until  expectation  became  success;  until  the  most  formidable 
power  of  earth  learned  the  salutary  lesson,  that  a  proud  nation,  mighty 
in  armed  men,  and  strong  in  the  terrible  material  of  war  by  sea  and  by 
land,  could  not  conquer  the  everlasting  truth.  The  experiment,  so 
full  of  promise  and  yet  so  threatened  with  dangers,  became  an  accom 
plished  fact.  Like  a  grain  of  mustard,  sown  in  a  subdued  faith,  it 
shot  upward  and  became  an  overshadowing  tree,  so  wide-spread  and 
luxuriant  that  the  birds  of  the  air  could  rest  in  its  branches.  Would 
that  none  of  evil  omen  had  ever  taken  refuge  there. 

Thus  was  planted  the  germ  of  liberty  in  this  holy  land  of  freedom. 
It  was  nurtured  in  the  warm  heart's  blood  of  patriots,  and  watered  by 
the  tears  of  widows  and  orphans;  but  for  a  time  it  was  tremulous  and 
slender,  and  like  a  frail  reed  it  bowed  before  every  breeze.  Oh,  what  in 
vocations  ascended  to  Him  "  who  tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb," 
for  that  cherished  shoot,  that  the  "  winds  of  Heaven  might  not  visit 
it  too  roughly."  With  the  fathers  of  the  Revolution,  it  was  remem 
bered  at  the  morning  and  evening  sacrifice.  "  When  its  leaves  withered 
they  mourned,  and  when  it  rejoiced,  they  rejoiced  with  it."  But  those 
who  planted  it,  and  watched  over  its  spring-time  with  more  than  a 
father's  solicitude,  have  gone  up  to  loftier  courts,  and  repose  under 
the  fadeless  foliage  of  the  tree  of  life.  The  gray-haired  minister 
who  craved  for  it  God's  blessing,  has  been  wafted  away  like  the 
prophet  of  old,  in  a  chariot  of  fire,  and  the  children  who  sported  to 
gether  on  the  grass  beneath  it,  now  slumber  with  their  fathers.  The 
last  revolutionary  soldier  who  rejoiced  in  its  pride,  and  told  with 
tears  its  early  trials,  "shouldered  his  crutch  and  showed  how  fields 
were  won,"  has  been  mustered  into  the  service  of  his  Lord  and  master, 
where  the  tramp  of  cavalry  and  the  shock  of  armies,  the  neighing  of 
chargers,  and  the  blast  of  bugles  shall  be  heard  no  more.  But  the 
slender  shoot  of  other  times  has  become  a  giant  in  the  world's  extended 
forest.  Its  roots  have  sunk  deep  in  earth;  its  top  has  stretched  beyond 
the  clouds,  and  its  branches  have  spanned  the  continent;  its  form  is 
graceful,  its  foliage  bright  and  beautiful,  and  its  fruits  have  carried 
gladness  to  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  The  oppressed  of  other  lands, 
finding,  like  the  wearied  dove,  no  rest  amid  the  old  world's  desolation 
have  conquered  the  noblest  instincts  of  the  soul,  the  love  of  early 
home,  of  birth-place,  of  the  streams  of  childhood,  of  the  graves  of 
their  beloved  dead,  and  have  sought  a  gathering  place  of  affection 


DANIEL    STEVENS  DICK  IN  SOX.  523 

under  its  protecting  branches.  Here  they  have  reposed  in  peace 
and  plenty,  and  fancied  security,  from  the  struggles  which  cursed 
their  native  land.  No  groans  of  oppression  are  heard  beneath 
it,  no  deadly  malaria  sickens  in  its  shade,  but  its  sheltering  influen 
ces,  refreshing  as  the  dews,  and  genial  as  the  sunshine,  have  blessed 
and  cherished  all. 

Ah  !  what  government  has  so  protected  its  children,  so  ennobled 
man,  so  elevated  woman,  so  inspired  youth,  so  given  hope  and  prom- 
is-e  to  budding  childhood,  so  smoothed  the  descent  of  dreary  age;  has 
so  guarded  freedom  of  conscience,  so  diffused  intelligence,  so  fostered 
letters  and  the  arts,  so  secured  to  all  "  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness."  The  triumphs  of  freedom,  moral  and  material,  under 
this  new  dispensation,  have  excelled  the  ;hope  of  the  most  sanguine. 
From  three  our  population  has  increased  to  thirty  millions,  from  thir 
teen  feeble  colonies  along  the  Atlantic  slope  to  thirty-four  powerful 
states,  with  numerous  others  in  the  process  of  formation  and  on  their 
way  for  admittance  to  the  Union.  Two  strong  European  powers  have 
withdrawn  from  the  continent,  leaving  us  the  fruits  of  their  possess 
ions.  Great  and  prosperous  states  and  cities  and  towns,  teeming  with 
the  elements  of  enterprise  and  social  culture,  and  abounding  with  in 
stitutions  of  religion  and  learning,  have  arisen  as  if  by  magic  on  the 
far  distant  Pacific,  where  we  have  only  paused,  lest  to  cross  it  might 
put  us  on  our  return  voyage  and  bring  us  nearer  home;  and  the  river 
which  the  ambition  of  our  early  history  essayed  to  fix  for  our  western 
limit  now  runs  nearest  our  eastern  boundary.  Numerous  aboriginal 
nations  have  been  displaced  before  the  prevailing  current  of  our  ar  s 
and  arms  and  free  principles.  He  who  listens  may  hear  the  pattering 
feet  of  coming  millions;  and  whoever  will  look  back  upon  the  past  and 
forward  upon  the  future  must  see  that  there  are  further  races  for  us  to 
civilize,  educate,  and  absorb,  and  that  new  triumphs  await  us  in  the 
cause  of  progress  and  civilization.  Thus  have  we  passed  from  infancy 
to  childhood,  from  childhood  to  robust  and  buoyant  youth,  and  from 
youth  to  vigorous  manhood;  and  with  an  overgrowth  so  superabund 
ant  we  should  neither  be  surprised  nor  alarmed  that  we  have  provoked 
foreign  envy  as  well  as  unwilling  admiration;  that  cankers  of  discon 
tent  are  gnawing  at  our  heartstrings,  and  that  we  are  threatened  with 
checks  and  trials  and  reverses. 

The  continent  of  North  America  presents  to  the  observing  mind  one 
great  geographical  system,  every  portion  of  which,  under  the  present 
facilities  for  intercommunication,  may  be  more  accessible  to  every 
other  than  were  the  original  states  to  each  other  at  the  time  the  con 
federacy  was  formed.  It  is  destined  at  no  distant  day  to  become  per 
manently  the  commercial  centre,  when  France  and  England  will  pay 
tribute  to  New  York,  and  the  Rothschilds  and  the  Barings  will  sell 
exchange  on  Wall  Street  at  a  premium.  And  it  requires  no  romantic 
stretch  of  the  imagination  to  believe  that  the  time  is  at  hand,  when 


524  A  M  ERIC  A  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

man,  regarding  his  own  wants,  yielding  to  his  own*  impulses,  and  act 
ing  in  obedience  to  laws  more  potent  than  the  laws  of  a  blind  ambi- 
ion,  "will  ordain  that  the  continent  shall  be  united  in  political  as  well 
as  natural  bonds,  and  form  but  one  great  Union — a  free,  self-governed, 
confederated  republic,  exhibiting  to  an  admiring  world  the  results  which 
have  been  achieved  for  man's  freedom  and  elevation  in  this  western 
hemisphere. 

In  ordinary  times,  a  correct  taste  would  suggest  that  upon  occasions 
like  the  present  all  subjects  of  political  concern,  however  measured  by 
moderation  and  seasoned  with  philosophy  and  historic  truth,  should  be 
left  for  discussion  to  some  appropriate  forum,  and  those  only  consid 
ered  which  are  more  in  sympathy  with  the  objects  of  the  societies  of 
Amherst;  but  when  the  glorious  edifice  which  protects  and  shelters  all 
is  threatened  with  the  fate  of  the  Ephesian  dome,  the  patriotic  scholar, 
before  he  sits  down  to  his  favorite  banquet,  will  raise  his  voice  and 
nerve  his  arm  to  aid  in  extinguishing  the  flames,  that  he  may  preserve 
to  posterity  institutions  without  which  all  the  learning  of  the  schools 
would  be  but  mockery,  and  give  place  to  violence  and  ignorance  and 
barbarism.  This  is  emphatically  a  utilitarian  and  practical  age,  and 
when  the  foundations  upon  which  the  ark  of  our  political  safety  rests 
are  threatened,  when  rebellion  is  wafted  on  every  breeze,  and  the  rude 
din  of  arms  greets  us  on  either  hand,  menacing  our  very  existence  as 
a  great  and  prosperous  people,  letters  as  well  as  laws  may  sympathize 
with  the  danger  and  become  silent  in  our  midst. 

Bad  government  is  the  foe  of  knowledge.  Under  its  destructive 
reign,  learning  is  neglected,  ignorance  is  honored  and  commended, 
and  free  opinion  is  persecuted  as  an  enemy  of  state.  Its  schools  are 
military  despotisms,  and  the  dungeon,  the  rack,  and  the  gibbet  are  its 
teachers.  Under  its  haughty  sway,  the  energies  of  mind  are  bowed 
and  broken,  the  spirit  subdued  and  restrained  in  its  search  for  suste 
nance,  and  literature  and  the  sciences  droop,  languish,  and  die.  This 
glorious  Union  is  our  world;  while  we  maintain  its  integrity,  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth  must  recognize  our  supremacy  and  pay  us  homage; 
disjointed,  forming  two  or  more  fragmentary  republics,  we  shall  de 
serve  and  receive  less  consideration  than  the  states  of  Barbary.  And 
now  that  it  is  threatened  with  destruction,  let  us  as  one  people,  from 
the  North  and  the  South,  the  East  and  the  West,  rising  above  the  nar 
row  instincts  of  parties  and  associations,  relume  our  lamps  of  liberty 
as  the  vestals  replenished  their  sacred  fire,  though  not  extinguished, 
from  the  rays  of  the  morning  sun.  Let  us  renew  our  covenant,  and 
swear  upon  the  holy  altars  of  our  faith  to  maintain  and  defend  it  and 
its  glorious  emblem,  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  so  replete  with  pleasing 
memories;  and  if  there  are  any  who  distrust  their  own  firmness,  and 
fear  that  they  may  be  seduced,  or  fall  out  by  the  wayside,  or  be  fright 
ened  from  their  purpose,  let  them,  like  Fernando  Cort^ez,  destroy 
the  means  of  retreat  behind  them,  that  they  may  remain  faithful  to 
the  end. 


DANIEL    STEVENS  DICKINSON.  525 

When  the  sunlight  of  the  last  autumn  was  supplanted  by  the  premo 
nitions  of  winter,  by  drifting  clouds,  and  eddying  leaves,  and  the  flight 
of  birds  to  a  milder  clime,  our  land  was  emphatically  blessed.  We 
were  at  peace  with  all  the  powers  of  earth,  and  enjoying  undisturbed 
domestic  repose.  A  beneficent  Providence  had  smiled  upon  the  labors 
of  the  husbandman,  and  our  granaries  groaned  under  the  burden  of 
their  golden  treasures.  Industry  found  labor  and  compensation;  and 
the  poor  man's  latch  was  never  raised  except  in  the  sacred  name  of 
friendship  or  by  the  authority  of  law.  No  taxation  consumed,  no  des 
titution  appalled,  no  sickness  wasted,  but  health  and  joy  beamed  from 
every  face.  The  fruits  of  toil  from  the  North  and  the  South,  the  East 
and  the  West,  were  bringing  to  our  feet  the  contributions  of  the  earth; 
and  trade,  which  for  a  time  had  fallen  back  to  recover  breath  from  pre 
vious  over-exertion,  had  resumed  her  place  "where  merchants  most 
do  congregate."  The  land  was  replete  with  gladness,  and  vocal  with 
thanksgiving  of  its  sons  and  daughters,  up  its  sunny  hill-slopes  and 
through  its  smiling  valleys,  out  upon  its  vast  prairies,  along  its  majes 
tic  rivers,  and  down  its  meandering  streamlets;  and  its  institutions  of 
religion  and  learning  and  charity  echoed  back  the  sound. 

"  But  bringing  up  the  rear  of  this  bright  host, 

A  spirit  of  a  different  aspect  waved 
His  wings,  like  thunder  clouds  above  some  coast, 

Whose  barren  beach  with  frequent  wrecks  is  paved. 
His  brow  was  like  the  deep  when  tempest-tost ; 

Fierce  and  unfathomable  thoughts  engraved 
Eternal  wrath  on  his  immortal  face, 

And  where  he  gazed,  a  gloom  pervaded  space." 

Yes,  in  the  moment  of  our  country's  triumph,  in  the  plenitude  of 
its  pride,  in  the  hey-day  of  its  hope,  and  the  fulness  of  its  beauty,  the 
serpent  which  crawled  into  Eden  and  whispered  his  glozing  story  of 
delusion  to  the  unsuspecting  victim  of  his  guile,  unable  to  rise  from 
the  original  curse  which  rests  upon  him,  sought  to  coil  its  snaky  folds 
around  it,  and  sting  it  to  the  heart.  From  the  arts  and  the  enjoy 
ments  of  peace  we  have  plunged  deep  into  the  horrors  of  civil  war. 
Our  once  happy  land  resounds  with  the  clangor  of  rebellious  arms,  and 
is  polluted  with  the  dead  bodies  of  its  children;  some  seeking  to  de 
stroy,  some  struggling  to  maintain  the  common  beneficent  government 
of  all,  established  by  our  fathers. 

This  effort  to  divide  the  Union  and  subvert  the  government,  what 
ever  may  be  the  pretence,  is,  in  fact,  a  dangerous  and  daring  crusade 
against  free  institutions.  It  should  be  opposed  by  the  whole  power  of 
a  patriotic  people,  and  crushed  beyond  the  prospect  of  a  resurrection; 
and  to  attain  that  end,  the  government  should  be  sustained  in  every 
just  and  reasonable  effort  to  maintain  the  authority  and  integrity  of 
the  nation;  to  uphold  and  vindicate  the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution 
and  the  majesty  of  the  laws  by  all  lawful  means;  not  grudgingly 


526  AM  ERIC  AX  PA  TRIO  77.VJ/. 

sustained,  with  one  hesitating,  shuffling,  unwilling  step  forward  to 
save  appearances,  and  two  stealthy  ones  backward  to  secure  a  sea 
sonable  retreat;  nor  with  the  shallow  craft  of  a  mercenary  politician, 
calculating  chances  and  balancing  between  expedients;  but  with  the 
generous  alacrity  and  energy  which  have  a  meaning,  and  prove  a 
loyal,  a  patriotic,  and  a  willing  heart.  It  is  not  a  question  of  admin 
istration,  but  of  government;  not  of  politics,  but  of  patriotism:  not  of 
policy,  but  of  principles,  which  uphold  us  all;  a  question  too  great  for 
party;  between  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  on  one  hand,  and  mis 
rule  and  anarchy  on  the  other;  between  existence  and  destruction. 

The  Union  was  formed  under  the  Constitution  by  an  association  of 
equals;  like  the  temple  of  Diana,  every  pillar  which  upholds  its  arches 
was  the  gift  of  a  sovereign;  not  a  sovereign  created  by  man's  usurpa 
tion,  and  serving  upon  gala-days  to  exhibit  to  plundered  subjects  the 
diadems  and  diamonds  and  gorgeous  trappings  of  royalty,  but  of  a 
sovereign  people,  created  in  the  image  of  their  Maker,  and  bearing  in 
their  bosoms  the  crown  jewels  of  immortality.  In  the  administration 
of  its  government,  and  in  the  relations  of  its  members  with  each  other, 
each  and  every  one  is  entitled  to  complete  equality;  the  right  to  enjoy 
unmolested  all  the  privileges  of  the  compact,  in  their  full  length  and 
breadth,  in  letter  and  in  spirit.  Whenever  and  wherever  there  has 
been  a  departure  from  this  plain  and  just  stipulation,  in  theory  or  in 
practice,  in  either  section;  or  where  either  party  has  employed  means 
or  agencies  calculated  to  disturb  or  irritate  or  annoy  the  other,  there 
has  been  error  and  cause  of  grievance  which  demand  redress  and 
restitution;  and  when  rebellion  has  sheathed  its  swrord  and  lowered 
its  front,  and  the  obligations  of  the  Constitution  are  again  recognized 
by  all  who  owe  it  obedience,  may  every  true  friend  of  the  Constitution 
and  Union  unite  in  a  common  purpose  and  an  earnest  effort  in  seeing 
that  there  remains  no  just  cause  of  complaint  unredressed  in  any  por 
tion  of  the  confederacy.  But  there  has  been  no  grievance  alleged 
which,  if  true,  could  justify  armed  rebellion  and  disunion.  The  Con 
stitution,  with  defects  and  imperfections  from  which  human  creations 
are  inseparable,  bears  upon  its  bosom  remedies  for  every  abuse  which 
is  practised  in  its  name,  and  power  to  punish  every  violation  of  its 
salutary  provisions;  and  those  who  are  unable  to  "bear  the  ills  they 
have"  should  invoke  its  spirit  rather  than  "fly  to  others  which  they 
kno\v  not  of."  And  the  government,  though  it  has  by  no  means  been 
exempt  from  maladministration  throughout  its  eventful  history,  has 
been  less  arraigned  for  injustice  than  any  other  government  on  earth. 
Time  and  patience  and  a  sense  of  popular  justice,  the  ebbs  and  flows 
and  currents  of  opinion,  would  have  proved  a  corrective  of  all  serious 
causes  of  disturbance.  But  efforts  to  divide  the  Union  and  destroy 
the  government,  besides  being  intrinsically  atrocious,  instead  of  cor 
recting  the  alleged  grievances,  are  calculated  to  aggravate  them  more 
than  an  hundred  fold,  and,  if  successful,  to  close  a  day  of  humanities, 


DANIEL   STEVENS  DICKINSON.  ,      527 

hope  and  promise  in  this  refuge  of  liberty,  in  blood  and  darkness. 
No  one  denies  to  an  oppressed  people  the  right  of  revolution  as  the 
last  dreadful  resort  of  man  seeking  emancipation  when  all  other  efforts 
have  proved  unavailing — never  to  be  entered  upon  except  as  a  terrible 
necessity.  But  secession  is  a  bold  and  bald  and  wicked  imposture 
with  its  authors;  a  chimera,  an  illusion,  and  cheat  with  those  who  are 
betrayed  into  its  support;  and  it  exhibits  the  worst  features  of  the 
basest  despotism  in  enforcing  obedience  to  its  reign  of  terror.  It  is 
but  a  synonym  for  disunion  by  violence,  under  the  pretence  of  rights 
reserved  to  states,  and  must  have  sprung,  like  the  voluptuous  god 
dess,  from  froth,  so  little  of  right  or  reason  or  remedy  or  good  sense 
is  there  in  or  about  it;  though,  like  the  contents  of  her  mystic  girdle, 
it  promised  to  its  votaries  a  surfeit  of  hidden  pleasures. 

The  attempt  to  liken  this  wicked  and  corrupt  rebellion  to  the 
American  Revolution  requires  an  assurance  of  brass  sufficient  to 
reconstruct  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes.  While  the  colonies  were  petition 
ing  for  a  redress  of  grievances,  war  was  precipitated  upon  them  by  the 
British  Crown  to  compel  their  submission  and  silence.  While  Con* 
gress  was  canvassing  the  alleged  grievances  of  a  portion  of  the  states 
of  the  confederacy,  and  while  its  legislation  upon  the  subject  of  the 
territories  was  proceeding  in  harmony  with  their  professed  wishes, 
members  representing  such  aggrieved  states  withdrew,  and  precipita 
ted  disunion  in  hot  haste,  before  the  result  of  proposed  conciliatory 
efforts  could  be  ascertained  ;  as  though  they  feared,  if  they  awaited 
the  developments  of  events  in  progress,  they  might  be  more  seriously 
aggrieved  by  a  redress  of  grievances  !  The  colonies  had  neither  sup 
port  nor  sympathy  nor  representation  in  any  department  of  the  British 
Government,  but  they  persevered  in  their  efforts  to  obtain  justice  and 
recognition  so  long  as  a  single  ray  of  hope  gave  promise,  and  until 
they  were  silenced  by  the  presence  of  British  troops,  and  were  com 
pelled  to  submit  to  slavery  and  degradation,  or  appeal  to  the  last 
refuge  of  an  oppressed  people — the  arbitrament  of  the  field.  They 
claimed  no  false  or  fabricated  reading  of  the  British  constitution  which 
enabled  them  to  sever  their  connection  with  the  Crown  and  avoid  the 
responsibility  of  revolution,  but  they  manfully  took  their  stand  upon 
the  ultima  ratio  of  nations.  They  received  a  world's  sympathy, 
because  their  revolt  was  an  imperious  necessity,  and  heaven  smiled 
upon  their  efforts  for  deliverance  and  independence.  But  if  they  had 
connived  at  the  accession  of  the  selfish,  perverse,  and  bigoted  George 
to  the  Crown,  that  they  might  be  aole  to  complain  of  the  reigning 
monarch,  and,  above  all,  if  they  had  controlled  the  ministry  and  held 
a  majority  in  Parliament,  and  had  vacated  their  seats  and  had  yielded 
up  the  power  to  their  opponents,  and  had  then  cried  out  oppression, 
to  cover  schemes  of  political  ambition,  they  would  have  both  deserved 
and  received,  instead  of  sympathy  or  confidence  or  countenance,  the 
scorn  and  contempt  of  Christendom. 


528  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

The  Declaration  of  American  Independence,  the  modern  Magna 
Charta  of  human  rights,  evolved  the  idea,  so  cheering  to  the  cause  of 
freedom  and  y^et  so  startling  to  monarchy,  that  governments  derived 
their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  and  that  although 
governments  long  established  should  not  be  changed  for  light  or  trans 
ient  causes,  yet  when  they  became  subversive  of  the  ends  for  which 
they  were  established,  and  "when  a  long  train  of  abuses  and  usurpa 
tions,  pursuing  invariably  the  same  object,  evinced  the  design  to  reduce 
them  under  absolute  despotism,  it  was  their  right,  their  duty,  to  throw 
off  such  government,  and  to  provide  new  guards  for  their  future 
security."  But  it  nowhere  declares  that  a  knot  of  conspiring  pol 
iticians,  foiled  in  their  schemes  of  ambition  and  plunder,  and  chafing 
under  disappointment,  like  a  tiger  cheated  in  his  foray,  may,  without 
the  popular  support  or  sympathy,  but  in  defiance  of  both,  assert  that 
the  election  of  a  political  opponent,  whose  success  they  might  have 
prevented,  is  a  sufficient  cause  for  rebellion,  or  that  a  party  or  an 
interest  which  has  the  majority  in  both  branches  of  the  representative 
government,  and  is  protected  by  the  opinions  of  the  judiciary  of  the 
nadon,  can  withdraw,  so  as  to  give  its  opponents  the  power,  and  then 
set  on  foot  a  rebellion,  and  seek  to  destroy  an  edifice  which  stands  as 
the  last  best  hopes  of  man,  because  they  fear  that  they  may  be  visited 
with  political  oppression  !  Those  who  practise  such  shallow  devices 
before  the  world  in  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  should 
remember  that  they  but  copy  the  stupid  instincts  of  the  bird  which 
buries  its  head  in  the  sand,  and  then  indulges  the  conceit  that  its 
ungainly  body  is  concealed  also.  Whatever  causes  of  disturbance  and 
disaffection  existed  between  the  North  and  the  South,  the  public  judg 
ment  has  rendered  its  verdict  upon  abundant  evidence,  and  with  extra 
ordinary  unanimity  ;  deciding  that  such  formed  a  remote  and  feeble 
element  in  inducing  disunion,  but  that  it  was  a  foregone  conclusion 
with  those  who  urged  it  forward  ;  darkly  designed  and  deliberately 
determined,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  personal  eclat  and  self-aggran 
dizement,  rather  than  of  securing  rights  and  privileges  to  an  op 
pressed  section  of  people. 

"  Order  is  heaven's  first  law." 

It  is  coeval  with  being.  No  people,  civilized  or  savage,  ever 
existed  without  a  government  for  their  guidance  and  regulation, 
Beasts  of  the  field  and  forest,  birds  of  the  air,  fishes  of  the 
sea,  and  insects  which  inhabit  ail,  form  their  colonies  and  associ 
ations,  and  arrange  themselves  in  obedience  to  some  recognized  rule; 
and  even  inanimate  objects  obey  with  unerring  certainty  the  hand 
which  guides  them.  Nor  do  the  lights  of  history  the  lessons  of  ex 
perience,  or  the  nickering  shadows  of  tradition  tell  of  a  government, 
which  voluntarily  and  by  design  planted  the  seeds  of  its  own  decay  in 
its  bosom,  or  provided  for  its  own  destruction  and  overthrow,  by  com- 


DANIEL    STEVENS  DICKINSON.  529 

mitting  its  life  and  destiny  to  other  hands.  The  Constitution  forming 
the  Union  and  erecting  its  government  was  an  emanation  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  It  was  adopted,  as  declared  in  its  pre 
amble,  "  to  form  a  more  perfect  Union,  to  establish  justice,  insure  do 
mestic  tranquillity,  provide  for  the  common  defence,  to  promote  the 
general  welfare,  and  to  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  the  people 
who  ordained  it,  and  their  posterity."  But  if  the  instrument  which 
formed  the  more  perfect  Union  with  becoming  solemnity,  contem 
plated  its  dismemberment  and  overthrow  by  the  withdrawal  of  all  or 
any  of  the  states  therefrom,  at  the  pleasure  of  their  capricious  politi 
cians,  it  remained  a  most  imperfect  and  pitiable  Union  still.  If  the 
justice  it  established  was  but  temporary;  if  the  domestic  tranquillity 
it  insured  was  but  for  the  time  being  only;  if  the  common  defence  it 
provided  for  was  until  some  of  the  states  should  withdraw  from  the 
Union  and  make  war  upon  it;  and  if  the  blessings  of  liberty  it  secured 
to  posterity  were  upon  condition  that  those  who  enjoyed  them  should 
not  wish  to  subvert  the  liberty  thus  secured  by  armed  force;  then 
our  boasted  Constitution,  which  has  been  hailed  throughout  the  earth 
as  one  of  the  wisest  emanations  of  man,  and  enjoys  a  world-wide 
fame  for  its  humane  provisions  and  lofty  conceptions  of  statesmanship, 
should  be  scouted  as  a  fraud,  a  delusion,  and  an  imposture  possessing 
much  more  sound  than  substance,  and  carrying  by  design  in  its  own 
bosom  the  seeds  of  its  dissolution.  But  no  sentence  or  word  or  syl 
labic  can  be  found  in  the  federal  constitution,  sustaining  an  idea  at 
once  so  puerile  and  monstrous.  It  provides  for  the  admission  to  the 
Union  of  new  states,  but  not  the  withdrawal  therefrom  of  those  al 
ready  members.  To  gain  such  admission  the  state  must  apply  to 
Congress  with  a  constitution  republican  in  form;  and,  upon  an  act  of 
Congress  authorizing  such  admission,  duly  approved  and  signed  by 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  such  state  becomes  a  member  of 
t'le  confederacy.  If  one  state,  being  thus  admitted,  can  withdraw  at 
pleasure  by  passing  an  act  or  ordinance  of  secession,  and  cancel  a 
solemn  covenant  by  one  party  alone,  which  it  required  two  to  make, 
and  in  which  both  remain  interested,  any  or  all  may  do  the  same,  and 
the  rich  harvest  of  liberty  and  its  attending  blessings,  which  our  fore 
fathers  professed  to  secure  to  posterity,  may  prove  a  barren  and  a 
blasted  field,  when  those  for  whom  it  was  designed  prepare  to  reap 
their  inheritance. 

It  is  a  familiar  principle  of  law,  that  a  repealing  statute,  itself  re 
pealed,  revives  and  puts  in  full  force  the  former  law.  So  long  then  as 
Congress  permits  its  several  acts  for  the  admission  of  the  revolted 
states  to  the  Union,  to  stand,  according  to  secession  law  and  logic, 
these  states  can  go  out  and  in  at  pleasure;  and  if  they  may  withdraw 
by  an  ordinance  of  their  own,  by  the  same  rule  Congress  may  expel 
t'lem  by  repealing  its  act  of  admission.  To  go  out  of  the  Union,  as 
they  insist,  they  have  only  to  pass  an  act  or  ordinance  of  secession, 


530  A  M ERIC  A  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

without  the  knowledge,  privity,  or  consent  of  the  government  of  the 
Union.  To  return  they  would  have  only  to  repeal  it.  They  can  then 
go  out  when  it  suits  principle,  and  return  when  it  favors  interest;  or 
they  can  alternate,  like  migratory  birds,  with  the  seasons,  hatching 
disunion  in  the  confederacy  and  rearing  it  without;  and  as  thus  far  its 
managers  have,  in  most  instances,  generously  relieved  the  people  of 
participation  in  the  matter,  the  destruction  of  old  governments,  and 
the  erection  of  new  ones,  would  occasion  little  inconvenience. 

The  war  goddess,  according  to  mythology,  and  that  is  an  authority 
not  easily  refuted,  leaped  fully  armed  from  the  brain  of  Jove ;  but 
stranger  still,  the  founders  of  the  government  of  the  Southern  Confede 
racy  leaped  fully  armed,  with  high  sounding  titles  of  official  station,  from 
their  own,  and  brought  their  government  with  them  ;  an  emanation 
neither  suggested  nor  approved  by  the  popular  voice,  but  the  creation  of 
those  who,  like  the  renowned  Peter  Brush,  wanted  "  something  to  have 
rather  than  something  to  do,"  and  almost  universally  repudiated  wher 
ever  opportunity  has  been  afforded.  A  government  purporting  to  be  of 
the  people,  without  permitting  them  to  have  a  voice  in  constructing  it ; 
without  a  "  local  habitation  ;"  of  departments  in  the  abstract,  and 
offices  with  more  titles  than  duties  ;  a  president  without  an  election,  a 
treasury  without  money  or  resources  of  revenue,  a  navy  without  ships,  a 
post-office  without  mails,  a  minister  of  foreign  relations,  whose  relations 
abroad  decline  to  acknowledge  the  connection,  a  department  of  the  in 
terior  representing  a  nature-abhorred  vacuum,  an  attorney-general  with 
out  law,  and  a  patent  Office  which,  in  the  absence  of  other  business, 
should  issue  letters  securing  the  exclusive  right  of  this  new-fledged  con 
federacy  to  those  who  invented  it,  for  its  extraordinary  novelty  rather 
than  its  acknowledged,  utility,  that  it  may  be  preserved  to  after  times 
in  the  world's  curiosity  shop,  with  Law's  scheme  of  banking,  the  moon- 
hoax  of  Locke,  and  Redheiffer's  perpetual  motion. 

The  advocates  of  the  right  of  secession,  in  claiming  that  a  state,  after 
its  solemn  admission  and  while  enjoying  the  protection  and  participating 
in  the  fruits  of  the  Union,  may  at  its  pleasure  and  by  its  own  act  secede, 
to  be  consistent,  should  hold  that  a  nation  may  at  pleasure  withdraw 
from  its  treaty  obligations  without  previous  provision  or  consent  of  the 
other  side  ;  that  one  who  has  conveyed  an  estate  and  received  the  con 
sideration,  may  resume  it  when  it  suits  his  necessity  or  convenience  ; 
that  the  husband  or  wife  may  repudiate  the  marriage  obligation  without 
detriment  or  a  disregard  of  marital  faith  •  and,  in  short,  that  a  covenant 
made  by  two  parties,  and  in  which  both  are  interested,  may  be  cancelled 
by  one.  The  right  thus  to  secede  must  rest  upon  a  political  free  love, 
where  States  unequally  united  may,  on  discovering  their  true  affinities, 
dissolve  the  first  connection  and  become  sealed  in  confederate  wedlock 
to  their  chosen  companions  during  pleasure  ;  and  the  authors  of  the 
discovery  should  go  down  to  posterity  as  the  Brigham  Youngs  of  modern 
confederacies. 


DANIEL    STEVENS  DICKINSON.         .     •      531 

Most  events  of  modern  times  find  their  parallel  in  early  history  ;  and 
this  attempt  to  extemporize  a  government  upon  the  elements  of  political 
disquietude,  so  that,  like  sets  of  dollar  jewelry,  every  one  can  have  one 
of  his  own,  does  not  form  an  exceptional  case.  When  David  swayed 
the  sceptre  of  Judah,  the  comely  Absalom,  a  bright  star  of  the  morning, 
whose  moral  was  obscured  by  his  intellectual  light,  finding  such  amuse 
ments  as  the  slaying  of  his  brother  and  burning  the  barley  fields  of  Joab 
too  tame  for  his  ambition,  conceived  the  patriotic  idea  of  driving  his 
father  from  the  throne,  of  usurping  the  regal  authority  and  relieving 
the  people,  unasked,  from  the  oppressions  under  which  he  had  discovered 
they  were  groaning.  Like  modern  demagogues,  he  commenced  with 
disaffection  ;  advised  all  that  came  with  complaints,  that  from  royal  in 
attention,  no  one  was  deputed  to  hear  them  ;  greeted  those  who  passed 
the  king's  gate  with  a  kiss,  that  he  might  steal  away  their  hearts ; 
he  lamented  that  he  was  not  a  judge  in  the  land,  so  that  any 
one  who  had  a  cause  or  suit  might  come  to  him,  and  he  would 
do  him  justice.  Under  pretence  of  going  to  Hebron,  the  royal 
residence  in  the  early  reign  of  David,  to  pay  his  vows  (for  he 
was  as  conscientious  in  the  matter  of  vows  as  Herod),  he  raised 
a  rebellious  army,  and  sent  spies  through  the  land  to  proclaim  him 
king  and  reigning  in  Hebron,  when  the  trumpet  should  sound  upon 
the  air.  The  conspiracy,  says  sacred  history,  was  strong,  and  the  re 
bellion  was  so  artfully  contrived,  so  stealthily  inaugurated,  that  it  gave 
high  promise  of  success.  The  king,  although  in  obedience  to  the  stern 
dictates  of  duty  he  sent  forth  his  armies  by  hundreds  and  by  thousands 
to  assert  and  maintain  his  prerogative,  exhibited  the  heart  of  a  good 
prince  and  an  affectionate  father,  in  beseeching  them  for  his  sake  to 
deal  gently  with  the  young  man,  even  Absalom;  and  when  the  con 
flict  was  over,  his  first  inquiry,  with  anxious  solicitude,  was,  is  the 
young  man  Absalom  safe  ?  And  yet,  this  ambitious  rebel,  in  raising 
a  numerous  and  powerful  army,  and  endeavoring  to  wrest  the  govern 
ment  from  the  rightful  monarch,  would  doubtless  have  claimed,  ac 
cording  to  modern  acceptation,  that  he  was  acting  from  high  convic 
tions  of  duty;  from  a  power  of  necessity;  and  fighting  purely  in  self- 
defence.  And  when  the  great  battle  was  set  in  array  in  the  wood  of 
Ephraim,  where  twenty  thousand  were  slaughtered,  and  the  wood  de 
voured  that  day  more  than  the  sword  devoured,  there  was  evidently 
nothing  that  he  so  much  desired,  when  he  saw  exposure  and  overthrow 
inevitable,  as  to  be  let  alone.  But  that  short  struggle  subdued  the 
aspirations,  and  closed  forever  the  ignoble  career  of  this  ambitious 
leader  in  Israel; — a  warning  to  those  who  would  become  judges  before 
their  time,  or  be  made  kings  upon  the  sound  of  a  trumpet,  blown  by 
their  own  directions.  Let  all  such  remember  the  wood  of  Ephraim, 
the  wide  spreading  branches  of  the  oak,  the  painful  suspense  which 
came  over  the  author  of  the  rebellion,  the  darts  of  Joab,  and  the  dark 
pit  into  which  this  prince  of  the  royal  household  was  cast  for  his  folly, 


532  AM  ERICA. V  PATRIOTISM. 

and  u-ickeclness,  and  treachery.  And  when  those  charged  with  the 
aU;j;h<istraiio;i  of  our  government  send  forth  its  armies  by  hundreds 
and  by  thousands  to  maintain  and  vindicate  the  Constitution  and  the 
Union  o."  our  father-,  may  they  imitate  the  example  of  the  wise  king 
of  judali,  and  btseech  the  captains  of  the  hosts  to  deal  gently  with  the 
young  Absaloms  of  secession,  and  by  all  means  inquire  for  their  safety 
when  their  armies  have  been  completely  routed,  and  the  rebellion  put 
down  forever. 

Secession  either  peaceable  or  violent,  if  crowned  with  complete  suc 
cess,  can  furnish  no  iemedy  for  sectional  grievances,  real  or  imaginary. 
It  would  be  as  destructive  of  Southern  as  of  Northern  interests,  for 
both  are  alike  concerned  in  the  maintenance  and  prosperity  of  the 
Union.  It  would  increase  every  evil,  aggravate  every  cause  of  dis 
turbance,  and  render  every  acute  complaint  hopelessly  chronic.  Look 
at  miserable,  misguided,  misgoverned  Mexico,  and  receive  a  lesson  of 
instruction.  She  has  been  seceding,  and  dividing,  and  pronouncing 
and  fighting  for  her  rights,  and  in  self-defence  of  aggressive  leaders, 
from  the  day  of  her  nominal  independence;  and  she  has  reaped  an 
abundant  harvest  of  degradation  and  shame.  No  president  of  the 
Republic  has  ever  served  a  full  term  for  which  he  was  elected,  and 
generally,  had  his  successor  had  more  fitness  than  himself,  it  would 
have  occasioned  no  detriment.  When  the  population  of  the  United 
States  was  three  millions,  that  of  Mexico  was  five,  and  when  that  of 
the  United  States  is  thirty,  the  population  of  Mexico  is  only  eight; 
and  while  the  United  States  has  gained  the  highest  rank  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  by  common  consent,  Mexico  has  descended  to 
the  lowest.  Her  people  have  been  the  dupes  and  slaves  and  footballs 
of  aspiring  leaders,  mad  with  a  reckless  and  mean  ambition;  inflated 
with  self-importance  and  conceit,  and  destitute  of  patriotism  and  states 
manship.  But  as  a  clown  with  a  pick-axe  can  demolish  the  choicest 
productions  of  art,  so  can  the  demagogue  overthrow  the  loftiest  insti 
tutions  of  wisdom.  Thus  has  poor,  despised,  dwarfed,  and  down 
trodden  Mexico  been  crushed  under  the  iron  heel  of  her  own  insane 
dcspoilers;  a  memorable  but  melancholy  illustration  of  a  people  with 
out  a  fixed  and  stable  government;  the  sport  of  the  profligate  and  de 
signing,  the  victims  of  fraud  and  violence. 

Southern  States  along  the  free  border  had  felt  most  seriously 
all  the  injury  and  irritation  produced  by  inharmonious  and  conflict 
ing  relations  between  them  and  their  brethren  of  the  North  ;  and 
yet  the  people  of  these  states  shrunk  from  the  remedy  of  secession 
as  from  the  smoke  of  the  bottomless  pit.  They  saw  in  it  nothing 
but  swift  and  hopeless  destruction  ;  and  believed  that  the  desire 
for  disunion  had  originated  more  in  ultra  ambitious  schemes,  than  in 
a  determination  to  protect  their  peculiar  system  of  dorr.oslic  servitude 
from  encroachment.  But  states  with  which  the  heresy  originated  and 
had  been-  cherished  had  long  reveled  in  dreamy  theories  and  vague 


DANIEL    STEVENS  DICKINSON.  533 

notions  of  benefits  which  would  flow  to  them  from  a  dissevered  Union; 
and  madly  hastened  to  destroy  the  fabric  of  their  fathers  before  it 
could  be  rescued.  The  most  sordid  passions  of  men,  seeking-  indul 
gence  of  their  appetites  in  the  promised  land  of  secession,  lent  their  ab 
sorbing  stimulants  to  urge  forward  the  catastrophe.  Avarice  clanking 
her  chains  for  the  necessitous  and  mercenary,  and  fortunes  sprung  up 
unbidden,  on  either  hand,  to  greet  them,  seeking  masters  and  service. 
Ports  and  harbors,  and  marts  and  entrepots  rushed  in  upon  their 
heated  imaginations,  as  they  heard  in  the  distance  the  knell  of  the 
Union  tolling;  they  beckoned,  and  the  contributions  of  a  world's  com 
merce  was  poured  into  their  lap  by  direct  trade,  and  universal  expan 
sion  came  over  all  the  votaries  of  disunion  as  if  by  magic.  "The 
three  hooped  pot  had  ten  hoops,"  and  what  was  "Goose  Creek  once 
was  Tiber  now."  Mammon  erected  his  court,  and  they  heard  the 
clinking  of  gold  in  the  world's  exchequer,  as  it  accumulated  at  the 
counters  of  their  exchange.  Ambition  kindled  her  torch,  which  like  the 
bush  in  Horeb,  burned  and  was  not  consumed;  and  rank  and  place 
and  station,  and  stars  and  garters,  and  the  gew-gaw  trappings  of  nobility 
were  showered  in  promiscuous  profusion;  wreaths  of  laurel  adorned 
the  brows  of  the  brave,  and  the  devotees  of  pleasure  danced  to  the 
music  of  the  secession  sackbut  and  psaltery  and  harp,  "  and  all  went 
merry  as  a  marriage  bell." 

Though  sectional  feeling  had,  after  many  years  of  profitless  conflict, 
culminated,  and  the  wise  and  union-loving  were  engaged  in  restoring 
friendly  relations,  under  circumstances  more  favorable  to  success  than 
thirty  years  of  struggle  had  furnished;  and  though  Congress  was  or 
ganizing  the  territories  without  restriction  upon  domestic  institutions, 
yet  the  time  for  disunion,  so  long  invoked,  had  come;  and  one  state, 
so  far  as  in  her  power,  sundered  the  bonds  that  made  her  a  member  of 
the  Union  before  the  result  of  the  presidential  election  had  been  de 
clared  by  Congress.  They  turned  their  backs  upon  friends  and  sym 
pathizers;  denounced  laggards  in  the  cause;  declared  their  repudiation 
of  the  Constitution;  and  applied  the  torch  to  the  temple  of  free  govern 
ment  and  the  Union  with  as  little  solemnity  as  they  would  have  re 
pealed  an  act  of  ordinary  legislation.  The  property  of  the  United 
States,  by  sea  and  by  land,  was  seized,  and  the  government  was 
defied  and  menaced  by  armed  forces  and  avowed  preparations  for 
war;  other  states  followed,  in  form,  if  not  in  substance,  by  the 
action  of  politicians  if  not  people,  some  half  willing,  others  more 
than  half  forced;  those  who  should  have  stood  with  sleepless  zeal  upon 
the  ramparts  of  the  Constitution,  ingloriously  surrendered  their  posts, 
and  the  reign  of  anarchy  was  thus  inaugurated  in  our  once  happy  land. 

All  this  increased,  and  seriously,  too,  the  embarrassments  which 
surrounded  the  question.  But  still  the  spirit  of  the  times,  the  voice 
of  the  people  in  every  section,  South  as  well  as  North,  demanded 


534  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

peace:  that  abstractions  should  be  laid  aside,  that  every  substantial 
cause  of  grievance  should  be  redressed,  and  that  the  interests  of  a 
great  and  prosperous  nation  should  not  be  disturbed,  nor  the  moral 
sense  of  the  world  shocked  by  a  conflict  of  arms  amongst  brethren. 
There  was  yet  hope  that  the  cup  of  intestine  war  might,  in  mercy,  be 
permitted  to  pass.  The  report  of  the  first  hostile  gun  which  was  dis 
charged,  however,  proclaimed  to  the  world  that  all  chances  of  peace 
ful  adjustment  were  over,  that  "  Heaven  in  anger,  for  a  dreadful  mo 
ment,  had  suffered  hell  to  take  the  reins;"  that  Pandora's  box  was 
open  again,  and  the  deadliest  plagues  known  to  earth  let  loose  to 
curse  it;  but,  as  of  old,  with  that  repository  of  evil,  hope  yet  smiled 
at  the  bottom. 

Argument  and  opinion  were  thrust  aside  for  violence  and  blood, 
with  deliberate  preparation.  Is  it  strange  that  natural  elements  sym 
pathized  with  the  occasion,  as  the  intelligence  was  flashed  through  the 
land? 

A  sheet  of  Cimmerian  darkness,  near  midnight,  hung  like  a  death- 
pall  over  the  earth,  the  winds  moaned  heavily,  like  the  wail  of  spirits 
lost,  doors  creaked  and  windows  clattered,  driving  currents  and  coun 
ter-currents  of  sleet  and  rain  descended  like  roaring  cataracts;  but  the 
hoarse  and  startling  shriek  of  the  newsboy,  rising  above  all  with  the 
appalling  cry,  "  The  bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter  !" 

"  Gave  signs  of  woe 
That  all  was  lost." 

The  blood-fiend  laughed  loud,  the  evil  genius  of  humanity  clapped 
his  hands  in  triumph,  monarchy  "grinned  horrible  a  ghastly  smile," 
but  Liberty,  bathed  in  tears,  was  bowed  in  shame,  for  the  madness  of 
her  degenerate  children  !  But  the  first  flash  of  artillery  kindled  anew 
a  flame  of  patriotic  devotion  to  country,  which  will  burn  with  a  pure 
and  constant  glow,  when  the  lamp  of  mortal  existence  shall  pale  and 
flicker  in  death.  Its  first  reverberations  upon  the  air  aroused  a  slum 
bering  love  of  our  Constitution,  of  the  Union,  and  of  the  cherished 
emblem  of  all,  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  which  will  not  again  seek  re 
pose  until  the  roar  of  hostile  guns  shall  be  silenced.  It  started  to 
their  feet,  as  if  by  a  common  impulse,  twenty  millions  of  freemen,  to 
guard  the  citadel  of  their  faith  from  destruction,  as  war  was  driving 
his  ebon  car  upon  his  remorseless  mission. 

This  civil  intestine  war  is  one  of  the  most  fearful  and  ferocious  that 
ever  desolated  earth,  and  its  authors  will  be  cursed  when  the  atroci 
ties  of  Bajaset  and  Tamerlane  and  the  Khans  of  Tartary  and  India, 
and  other  despoilers  of  the  earth,  shall  be  forgotten.  It  is  a  war  be 
tween  and  amongst  brethren.  Those  whose  eyes  should  have  beamed 
in  friendship  now  gleam  in  war;  those  who  close  in  the  death-strug 
gle  upon  the  battle-field,  were  children  of  the  same  household  and 


DANIEL   STEVENS  DICKINSON.  535 

nurtured  at  the  same  gathering-place  of  affection,  baptized  at  the  same 
font,  and  confirmed  at  the  same  chancel  : 

"  They  grew  in  beauty  side  by  side. 
They  filled  one  house  with  glee  , 

Whose  voices  mingled  as  they  prayed 
Round  the  same  parent  knee.'- 

But  while  we  express  deep  humiliation  for  the  depravity  of  our 
kind,  and  are  shocked  and  sickened  at  a  spectacle  so  revolting,  we 
should  not  abandon  the  dear  old  mansion  to  the  flames,  even  though 
kindled  by  brethren  who  should  have  watched  over  it  with  us  and 
guarded  it  from  harm.  And  while  we  should  not  raise  our  hand  to 
shed  a  brother's  blood,  we  may  turn  aside  his  insane  blow,  aimed  at 
the  heart  of  the  venerated  mother  of  all.  And  if  a  great  power  of 
Europe,  with  or  without  the  aid  of  other  nations,  is  disposed  to 
sympathize  with  rebellion,  and  believes  this  government  and  this  peo 
ple  can  be  driven,  by  the  menaces  of  foreign  and  domestic  forces  com 
bined,  to  avoid  the  curses  of  war,  let  her  try  the  experiment.  But 
when  they  come,  to  save  time  and  travel,  let  them  bring  with  them  a 
duly-executed  quit-claim  to  the  Union,  for  such  portions  of  the  North 
American  continent  as  they  have  not  surrendered  to  it  in  former  con 
flicts,  for  they  will  have  occasion  for  just  such  an  instrument,  when 
ever  their  impertinent  interference  is  manifested  practically  in  our 
domestic  affairs. 

Conspicuous  in  this  strange  passage  of  the  New  World's  history  is  the 
secession  of  Texas.  A  state  with  extended  territories  and  the  right  to 
form  four  more  states  from  them  without  restriction,  south  of  the  old 
Missouri  line;  a  state  requiring  the  protection  of  the  federal  govern 
ment  to  guard  it  from  marauding  savages  and  other  hostile  bands;  a 
state  which  was  never  wronged  by  a  northern  state,  nor  by  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  Union,  in  theory  or  in  practice.  This  state  was  the 
last  southern  state  gathered  under  the  flag  of  the  Union,  admitted 
in  1845,  more  as  a  southern  than  a  northern  measure;  admitted  too, 
under  peculiar  circumstances,  after  a  most  memorable  struggle,  and  in 
the  highest  branch  of  the  national  legislature  by  a  single  vote. 

"  Sir  John  of  Hynford,  'twas  my  blade 
That  knighthood  on  thy  shoulder  laid; 
For  this  good  deed  permit  me  then, 
A  word  to  these  misguided  men." 

I  would  say  to  the  people  of  Texas  and  the  whole  South — not  those 
who  seek  to  maintain,  but  those  who  labor  to  destroy  the  Union 
— you  have  widely  mistaken  both  the  temper  and  the  purpose  of 
the  great  body  of  people  of  the  free  states  in  the  present  crisis, 
In  this  unnatural  struggle  which  your  leaders  have  forced  upon 
them,  they  seek  only  to  uphold  and  maintain  and  preserve  from  de- 
A.  P.-18. 


536  A  MEKIC.  1  -V  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

struction  a  government  which  is  a  common  inheritance,  and  in  <rhe 
preservation  of  which  you  are  equally  interested.  They  seek  not  to 
despoil  your  slate,  nor  to  disturb  your  internal  relations,  but  to  pre 
serve  the  Union  which  shelters  and  protects  all,  and  vindicate  the  Con 
stitution  which  is  especially  your  only  defence  against  aggression — is 
both  your  sword  and  shield.  They  war  not  upon  your  peculiar  sys- 
.tem  of  domestic  servitude,  nor  will  they  ;  but  they  admonish  you  in  a 
"spirit  of  kindness,  that  during  this  brief  struggle  its  friends  and  advo 
cates  have  been  its  worst  enemies,  and  have  furnished  arguments 
against  it  which  will  weaken  its  foundations;  when  the  denunciations 
of  its  most  persistent  anti-slavery  foes  are  forgotten  forever.  You  ar 
raign  the  people  of  the  free  states  for  rallying  around  the  government 
of  the  Union,  of  which  a  few  months  since  you  were  members,  sus 
taining  it  yourselves;  and  which  at  the  time  of  your  alleged  secession, 
had  experienced  no  change  beyond  one  of  political  administration. 
You  rebuke  those  who  stood  with  you  through  good  and  evil  report  in 
defence  of  the  Constitution,  and  all  its  guaranties,  in  its  dark  days  of 
trial,  when  menaced  only  by  opinion,  for  sustaining  it  now,  when  it 
is  assailed  by  armed  forces;  and  insist  that,  after  having  defended 
that  sacred  instrument  so  long  and  so  faithfully,  they  are  bound  to 
assist  in  its  overthrow — a  system  of  law,  logic  and  morality,  peculiar 
to  disunion  ethics  alone.  You  repudiate  the  Constitution  with  no  suf 
ficient  cause  of  revolution;  for  all  the  alleged  causes  of  grievance,  as 
stated,  were  insufficient  to  justify  it;  and  proclaimed  a  dissolution  of 
the  Union,  defied  and  dishonored  its  flag,  and  menaced  the  govern 
ment  by  denouncing  actual  war.  You  seized  by  violence  its  fortresses, 
armories,  ships,  mints,  custom-houses,  navy-yards,  and  other  prop 
erty,  to  which  you  had  not  even  a  pretence  of  right,  and  threatened  to 
take  possession  of  the  national  capital.  You  bombarded  Fort  Sumtcr, 
a  fortress  of  the  United  States,  garrisoned  as  a  peace  establishment 
only,  and  in  a  state  of  starvation,  from  batteries  which  the  United 
States,  in  its  extreme  desire  for  peace,  permitted  you  to  erect  for  that 
purpose,  under  the  guns  of  the  same  fortification,  a  proceeding  never 
heard  of  before  and  never  to  be  repeated  hereafter;  bombarded  it, 
too,  because  the  flag  of  the  Union  under  which  your  fathers  and 
yourselves  had  fought  with  us  the  battles  of  the  Constitution,  a  flag 
which  a  few  days  previously  you  had  hailed  with  pride  ;  because 
the  Stars  and  Stripes,  the  joy  of  every  American  heart,  full  of 
gloAving  histories  and  lofty  recollections,  which  was  floating  over  it 
according  to  the  custom  of  every  nation  and  people  under  heaven, 
was  hateful  in  your  sight.  The  Athenians  were  tired  of  hearing 
their  great  leader  called  the  just,  and  consigned  him  to  banish 
ment.  You  were  annoyed  at  the  sight  of  the  noblest  emblem 
which  floats  under  the  sun;  when  unfurled,  where  by  your  consent 
and  for  a  consideration  too,  the  government  of  the  United  States  held 
exclusive  jurisdiction,  and  where  it  properly  belonged,  and  for  this 


bANIEL    STEVENS  DICKINSON.  537 

you  commenced  a  war  promising  to  -be  more  ferocious  and  extermin 
ating  throughout  the  Republic  than  was  the  atrocious  decree  of  Herod 
in  a  single  village.  Sumter  was  not  erected  for  the  exclusive  defence 
of  the  harbor  of  Charleston,  but  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  a  for 
eign  enemy  from  making  a  lodgment  there,  and  from  that  point  levy 
ing  successful  maritime  war  upon  New  York,  Boston,  Philadelphia, 
Baltimore,  New  Orleans,  and  other  towns  and  cities.  And  the  un 
friendly  relations,  which  sprung  up  between  the  southern  states  and 
the  government  of  the  Union,  made  its  retention  and  occupation  more 
necessary  than  before. 

You  will  not  consent  that  the  general  government,  the  government 
of  the  whole  people,  should  march  forces  over  the  "sacred  soil  of  a 
state"  of  the  confederacy,  to  maintain  its  own  dignity  and  authority, 
to  check  rebellion  and  save  the  capital  from  conflagration  and  its 
archives  from  destructiou;  but  you  should  stand  admonished  that  there 
is  no  soil  sufficiently  sacred  under  the  broad  aegis  of  the  Constitution 
to  shelter  armed  rebellion  or  secret  treason,  and  that  the  government 
of  the  United  States  has  not  only  full  right  and  lawful  authority  to 
march  its  forces  over  every  inch  of  territory  between  the  St.  Lawrence 
and  the  Pacific,  to  stop  the  progress  of  ciumies,  foreig.i  or  do  nesti :, 
to  put  do\vn  rebellion,  to  arrest  those  who  despoil  its  property,  or  re 
sist  the  execution  of  the  laws,  but  it  is  ils  first  and  most  solemn  duty 
to  do  so.  Should  the  general  government  enter  a  state  for  the  purpose 
of  interference  with  its  domestic  policy,  it  would  be  usurpation  and  an 
unwarrantable  invasion;  a  neglect  to  employ  its  power  to  enforce  its 
constitutional  prerogative  would  be  a  culpable  disregard  of  official  ob 
ligation.  You  profess  to  defend  your  home-hearths,  your  firesides, 
your  porches,  your  altars,  your  wives  and  your  children,  your  house 
hold  gods,  and  those  resolves  sound  well  indeed,  even  in  the  abstract ; 
but  practically  the  defence  will  be  in  time  when  they  are  assailed,  or 
at  least  thieatened.  And  you  may  rest  with  the  assurance,  that,  when 
cither  of  these  sacred  and  cherished  interests  shall  be  desecrated  or 
placed  in  danger  or  in  jeopardy  from  any  vandal  spirit  on  the  globe, 
you  shall  not  defend  them  alone;  for  an  army  from  the  free  states 
mightier  than  that  which  rose  up  to  crush  your  rebellion,  aye  "a  great 
multitude,  which  no  man  can  number,"  will  defend  them  for  you.  Bat 
the  issue  must  not  be  changed  nor  frittered  away.  Sumter  was  not 
your  home-hearth,  Pickens  your  fireside,  Harper's  Ferry  your  porch, 
the  navy  yards  your  altars,  the  custom-houses  and  post-offices  and 
revenue  cutters  your  wives  and  children,  nor  the  mints  your  house 
hold  gods  !  The  government  has  no  right  to  desecrate  your  homes,, 
nor  have  you  the  right  to  seize  upon  and  appropriate  to  yourselves 
under  any  name,  however  specious,  what  is  not  your  own,  but  the  prop 
erty  of  the  whole  people  of  the  United  States;  not  of  those  in  array 
against  it  as  enemies,  defying  its  laws,  but  those  who  acknowledge  and 
defer  to  its  authority. 


538  AMKRICA  X  PA  TRIO  T7SM. 

You  desire  peace.  Then  lay  down  your  arms,  and  you  will  have  it. 
It  was  peace  when  you  took  them  up;  it  will  be  peace  when  you  lay 
them  down  It  will  be  peace  when  you  abandon  war  and  return  to 
your  accustomed  pursuits.  Honorable,  enduring,  pacific  relations 
will  be  found  in  complete  obedience  to  the  provisions  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  and  not  in  their  violations  or  destruction.  The  government  is 
sustained  by  the  people,  not  for  the  purpose  of  coercing  states  in  their 
domestic  policy;  not  for  the  purpose  of  crushing  members  of  the  con 
federacy  because  they  fail  to  conform  to  the  federal  standard;  not  for 
the  purpose  of  despoiling  their  people,  and  least  of  all  not  for  the  pur- 
pose  of  disturbing  or  in  any  degree  intefering  with  the  system  of 
southern  servitude;  but  for  the  sole  and  only  purpose  of  putting  down 
an  unholy,  armed  rebellion,  which  has  defied  the  authority  of  the  gov 
ernment  and  seeks  its  destruction;  and  in  this  their  determination  is 
taken  with  a  resolution  compared  with  which  the  edicts  of  the  Medes 
and  Persians  were  yielding  and  temporary.  When  the  government 
of  our  fathers  shall  be  again  recognized,  when  the  Constitution  and 
the  laws,  to  which  every  citizen  owes  allegiance,  shall  be  observed  and 
obeyed,  then  will  the  armies  of  the  Constitution  and  the  Union  disband 
by  a  common  impulse,  in  obedience  to  an  unanimous  popular  will. 
And  should  the  present  or  any  succeeding  administration  attempt  to 
employ  the  authority  of  the  government  and  people  to  coerce  states, 
or  mould  their  internal  affairs  in  derogation  of  the  Constitution,  the 
same  array  of  armed  forces  would  again  take  the  field,  but  it  would  be 
to  arrest  federal  assumption  and  usurpation,  and  protect  the  domestic 
rights  of  the  states. 

War  is  emphatically,  and  more  especially  a  war  between  brethren,  a 
disgrace  to  civilization;  and  any  war  is  a  drain  upon  the  life-blood, 
and  originates  in  wrong.  Evil  spirits  give  power  to  evil  men  for  its 
inauguration,  that  amidst  conflicts  of  blood  they  may  cast  all  down  to 
the  dark  regions  where  the  waves  of  oblivion  will  close  over  them. 
Its  evils  cannot  be  written,  even  in  human  blood.  It  sweeps  our  race 
from  earth,  as  if  heaven  had  repented  the  making  of  man.  It  lays  its 
skinny  hand  upon  society,  and  leaves  it  deformed  by  wretchedness 
and  black  with  gore.  It  marches  on  its  mission  of  destruction  through 
a  red  sea  of  blood,  and  tinges  the  fruits  of  earth  with  a  sanguine  hue, 
as  the  mulberry  reddened  in  sympathy  with  the  romantic  fate  of  the 
devoted  lovers.  It  "spoils  the  dance  of  youthful  blood,"  and  writes 
sorrow  and  grief  prematurely  upon  the  glad  brow  of  childhood  ;  it 
chills  the  heart  and  hope  of  youth;  it  drinks  the  life-current  of  early, 
manhood,  and  brings  down  the  gray  hair  of  the  aged  with  sorrow  to 
the  grave;  it  weaves  the  widow's  weeds  with  the  bridal  wreath,  and 
the  land,  like  Rama,  is  filled  with  wailing  and  lamentation.  It  lights 
up  the  darkness  with  the  flames  of  happy  homes.  It  consumes,  like 
the  locusts  of  Egypt,  every  living  thing  in  its  pathway  ?  It  wrecks 
fortunes,  brings  bankruptcy  and  repudiation,  and  blasts  the  fields  of 
the  husbandman;  it  depopulates  towns,  and  leaves  the  cities  a  modern 


DANIEL   STEVENS  DICKINSON.  539 

Herculaneum.  It  desolates  the  fireside  and  covers  the  family  dwell, 
ing  with  gloom,  and  an  awful  vacancy  rests,  where,  like  a  haunted 
mansion, 

"•  No  human  figure  stirred  to  go  or  come, 

No  face  looked  forth  from  shut  or  open  casement ; 
No  chimney  smoked  ;  there  was  no  sign  of  home 
From  parapet  to  basement. 

No  dog  was  on  the  threshold,  great  or  small, 
No  pigeon  on  the  roof,  no  household  creature, 

No  cat  demurely  dozing  on  the  wall, 
Not  one  domestic  feature." 

It  loads  the  people  with  debt,  to  pass  down  from  one  generation  to 
another  like  the  curse  of  original  sin.  Upon  its  merciless  errand  of 
vioience  it  nils  the  land  with  crime  and  tumult  and  rapine  and  it  "gluts 
the  grave  with  untimely  victims  and  peoples  the  world  of  perdition." 
In  the  struggle  of  its  death  throes,  it  heaves  the  moral  elements  with 
convulsions,  and  leaves  few  traces  of  utility  behind  it  to  mitigate  its 
curse;  and  he  who  inaugurates  it,  like  the  ferocious  Hun,  should  be 
denominated  the  scourge  of  God  ;  and  when  his  day  of  reckoning 
shall  come,  he  will  call  upon  the  rocks  and  mountains  to  hide  him  from 
popular  indignation. 

But  with  all  its  attending  evils,  this  Union  cannot  be  yielded  to  its 
demands  nor  to  avoid  its  terrors;  even  though,  like  the  republic  of 
France,  we  may  exchange  for  a  time  "liberty,  equality,  fraternity," 
for  infantry,  cavalry,  and  artillery.  Nor  are  tame  and  timid  measures 
the  guarantees  of  peace.  It  is  as  much  the  nature  of  faction  to  be 
base  as  of  patriotism  to  be  noble;  a  divided  Union,  instead  of  securing 
peace,  would  present  constant  occasion  for  conflict  and  be  a  fruitful 
source  of  war.  Let  the  rabble  cry  of  divide  and  crucify  go  on  from 
the  throat  of  faction;  and  the  cold  and  calculating  political  Pilates 
wash  their  hands  and  proclaim  their  innocence,  while  their  souls  are 
stained  with  guilt  and  crime  for  urging  it  forward  ;  but  let  the  faithful, 
conscious  of  their  integrity  and  strong  in  truth,  endure  to  the  end. 
Ruthless  as  is  the  sway  and  devastating  as  is  the  course  of  war,  it  is 
not  the  greatest  of  evils  nor  the  last  lesson  in  humiliation.  "  Sweet 
are  the  uses  of  adversity."  In  its  currents  of  violence  and  blood  it 
may  purify  an  atmosphere  too  long  surcharged  with  discontent  and 
corruption  and  apostasy  and  treachery  and  littleness;  and  prove  how 
poor  a  remedy  it  is  for  social  grievances.  It  may  correct  the  dry  rot 
of  demoralization  in  public  station,  and  raise  us  as  a  people  above  the 
dead  level  of  a  mean  and  sordid  ambition.  It  may  scatter  the  tribe  of 
bloated  hangers-on,  who  seek  to  serve  their  country  that  they  may 
plunder  and  betray  it;  and  above  all  it  may  arouse  the  popular  mind 
to  a  just  sense  of  its  responsibility,  until  it  shall  select  its  servants  with 
care  and  hold  them  to  a  faithful  discharge  of  their  duties;  until  defi 
cient  morals  shall  be  held  questionable,  falsehood  a  social  fault,  viola- 


540  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

tions  of  truth  a  disqualification,  and  bribery  a  disgrace;  until  integrity 
shall  be  a  recommendation,  and  treason  and  larceny  crimes. 

Can  a  Union  dissevered  be  reconstructed  by  the  arrangement  of  all 
parties  concerned  in  its  formation  ?  No  !  When  it  is  once  destroyed, 
it  is  destroyed  forever.  Let  those  who  believe  it  can  be,  first  raise  the 
dead,  place  the  dimpling  laugh  of  childhood  upon  the  lip  of  age,  gather 
up  the  petals  of  May  flowers  and  bind  them  upon  their  native  stems  in 
primeval  freshness  amidst  the  frosts  of  December,  bring  back  the 
withered  leaves  of  autumn  and  breathe  into  them  their  early  luxur 
iance,  and  then  gather  again  the  scattered  elements  of  a  dissevered 
Union  when  the  generous  springtime  of  our  republic  has  passed  away, 
and  selfishness  and  ambition  have  come  upon  us  with  their  premature 
frosts  and  "  winter  of  discontent."  Shall  we  then  surrender  to  turbu 
lence  and  faction  and  rebellion,  and  give  up  the  Union  with  all  its 
elements  of  good,  all  its  holy  memories,  all  its  hallowed  associations, 
all  its  blood-bought  history  ? 

"  No  !  let  the  eagle  change  its  plume, 
The  leaf  its  hue,  the  flower  its  bloom," 

But  do  not  give  up  the  Union  !  Preserve  it  to  "  flourish  in  immortal 
3Touth,"  until  it  dissolves  in  the  "wreck  of  matter  and  crash  of 
worlds."  Let  the  patriot  and  statesman  stand  by  it  to  the  last, 
whether  assailed  by  foreign  or  domestic  foes;  and  if  he  perishes  in 
the  conflict,  let  him  fall  like  Rienzi,  the  last  of  the  Tribunes,  upon  the 
same  stand  where  he  preached  liberty  and  equality  to  his  countrymen. 
Preserve  it  in  the  name  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Revolution,  preserve  it 
for  its  great  elements  of  good,  preserve  it  in  the  sacred  name  of  liberty, 
preserve  it  for  the  faithful  and  devoted  lovers  of  the  Constitution  in  the 
rebellious  states — those  who  are  persecuted  for  its  support,  and  are 
dying  in  its  defence.  Rebellion  can  lay  down  its  arms  to  government 
— government  cannot  surrender  to  rebellion. 

Give  up  the  Union,  "this  fair  and  fertile  plain,  to  batten  on  that 
moor  !"  Divide  the  Atlantic,  so  that  its  tides  shall  beat  in  sections, 
that  some  spurious  Neptune  may  rule  an  ocean  of  his  own  !  Draw  a 
line  upon  the  sun's  disc,  that  it  may  cast  its  beams  upon  earth  in  di 
vision  !  Let  the  moon,  like  Bottom  in  the  play,  show  but  half  its  face! 
Separate  the  constellation  of  the  Pleiades  and  sunder  the  bands  of 
Orion  !  but  retain  the  Union. 

Give  up  the  Union,  with  its  glorious  flag,  its  Stars  and  Stripes,  full 
of  proud  and  pleasing  and  honorable  recollections,  for  the  spurious 
invention,  with  no  antecedents  but  the  history  of  a  violated  Consti 
tution  and  of  lawless  ambition  ?  No  !  let  us  stand  by  the  emblem  of 
our  fathers: — 

*'  Flag  of  the  free  heart's  hope  and  home, 

By  angels'  hands  to  valor  given, 
Thy  stars  have  lit  the  welkin  dome 
And  all  thy  hues  were  born  m  heaven." 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  541 

Ask  the  Christian  to  exchange  the  cross,  with  the  cherished  memo 
ries  of  a  Saviour's  love,  for  the  crescent  of  the  impostor,  or  to  address 
his  prayers  *o  the  Juggernaut  or  Josh  instead  of  to  the  living  and 
true  God  !  but  sustain  the  emblem  your  fathers  loved  and  cherished. 
Give  up  the  Union  ?  Never  !  The  Union  shall  endure,  and  its 
praises  shall  be  heard,  when  its  friends  and  its  foes,  those  who  support 
and  those  who  assail,  those  who  bare  their  bosoms  in  its  defence,  and 
those  who  aim  their  daggers  at  its  heart,  shall  all  sleep  in  the  dust  to 
gether.  Its  name  shall  be  heard  with  veneration  amidst  the  roar  of 
Pacific's  waves,  away  upon  the  rivers  of  the  north  and  east,  where 
liberty  is  divided  from  monarchy,  and  be  wafted  in  gentle  breezes  upon 
the  Rio  Grande.  It  shall  rustle  in  the  harvest,  and  wave  in  the  stand 
ing  corn,  on  the  extended  prairies  of  the  West,  and  be  heard  in  the 
bleating  folds  and  lowing  herds  upon  a  thousand  hills.  It  shall  be 
with  those  who  delve  in  mines,  and  shall  hum  in  the  manufactories  of 
New  England,  and  in  the  cotton-gins  of  the  South.  It  shall  be  pro 
claimed  by  the  Stars  and  Stripes  in  every  sea  of  earth,  as  the  American 
Union,  one  and  indivisible,  Upon  the  great  thoroughfares,  wherever 
steam  drives  and  engines  throb  and  shriek,  its  greatness  and  perpet 
uity  shall  be  hailed  with  gladness.  It  shall  be  lisped  in  the  earliest 
words,  and  ring  in  the  merry  voices  of  childhood,  and  swell  to  Heaven 
upon  the  song  of  maidens.  It  shall  live  in  the  stern  resolve  of  man 
hood,  and  rise  to  the  mercy-seat  upon  woman's  gentle  availing  prayer. 
Holy  men  shall  invoke  its  perpetuity  at  the  altars  of  religion,  and  it 
shall  be  whispered  in  the  last  accents  of  expiring  age.  Thus  shall 
survive  and  be  perpetuated  the  American  Union,  and  when  it  shall  be 
proclaimed  that  time  shall  be  no  more,  and  the  curtain  shall  fall,  and 
the  good  shall  be  gathered  to  a  more  perfect  union  still,  may  the  des" 
tiny  of  our  dear  land  realize  the  poetic  conception: — 

"  Perfumes  as  of  Eden  flowed  sweetly  along, 
And  a  voice  as  of  angels,  enchantingly  sung, 
Columbia,  Columbia,  to  glory  arise, 
The  queen  of  the  world  and  the  child  of  the  skies." 


THE  REBELLION:    ITS  ORIGIN  AND   MAINSPRING. 
CHARLES  SUMNER. 

New  York,  November  27,  1861. 

On  the  sixth  of  November  last,  the  people  of  the  United  States  act' 
ing  in  pursuance  of  the  Constitution  and  laws,  chose  Abraham  Lin 
coln  President.  Of  course  this  choice  was  in  every  particular  perfectly 
constitutional  and  legal.  As  such,  it  was  entitled  to  the  respect  and 
acquiescence  of  every  good  citizen.  It  is  vain  to  say  that  the  candidate 
represented  opinions  obnoxious  to  a  considerable  section  of  the  coun- 


542  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

try,  or  that  he  was  chosen  by  votes  confined  to  a  special  section.  It 
s  enough  that  he  was  duly  chosen.  You  cannot  set  aside  or  deny 
such  an  election,  without  assailing  not  only  the  whole  framework  of 
the  Constitution,  but  also  the  primal  principle  of  American  institu 
tions.  You  become  a  traitor  at  once  to  the  existing  government  and 
to  the  very  idea  of  popular  rule.  You  snatch  a  principle  from  the  red 
book  of  despotism,  and  openly  substitute  the  cartridge-box  for  the 
ballot-box. 

And  yet  scarcely  had  this  intelligence  flashed  across  the  country  be 
fore  the  mutterings  of  sedition  and  treason  began  to  reach  us  from  an 
opposite  quarter.  The  Union  was  menaced;  and  here  the  first  dis 
tinct  voice  came  from  South  Carolina.  A  Senator  from  that  state,  one 
of  the  largest  slaveholders  of  the  country,  and  a  most  strenuous  parti 
san  of  slavery  (Mr.  Hammond),  openly  declared,  in  language  not 
easily  forgotten,  that  before  the  i8th  of  December  South  Carolina 
would  be  "  out  of  the  Union,  high  and  dry  and  forever."  These  words 
heralded  the  outbreak.  With  the  pertinacity  of  demons  its  leaders 
pushed  forward.  Their  avowed  object  was  the  dismemberment  of  the 
Republic,  by  detaching  state  after  state,  in  order  to  found  a  slavehold- 
ing  confederacy.  And  here  the  clearest  utterance  came  from  a  late 
representative  of  Georgia  (Mr.  Stephens),  now  Vice-President  of  the 
Rebel  States,  who  did  not  hesitate  to  proclaim  that  "  the  foundations 
of  the  new  government  are  laid  upon  the  great  truth,  that  slavery, 
subordination  to  the  superior  race,  is  the  negro's  natural  and  moral 
condition," — that  "it  is  the  first  government  in  the  history  of  the 
world  based  upon  this  great  physical,  philosophical,  and  moral  truth," 
— and  that  "  the  stone  which  was  rejected  by  the  first  builders  is  in 
the  new  edifice  become  the  chief  stone  of  the  corner."  Here  is  a 
savage  frankness,  with  insensibility  to  shame.  The  object  avowed  is 
hideous  in  every  aspect,  whether  we  regard  it  as  treason  to  our  pa 
ternal  government,  as  treason  to  the  idea  of  American  institutions,  or 
as  treason  to  those  commanding  principles  of  economy,  morals,  and 
Christianity,  without  which  civilization  is  no  better  than  barbarism. 

And  now  we  stand  front  to  front  in  deadly  conflict  with  this  double- 
headed,  triple-headed  treason.  Beginning  with  those  states  most 
peculiarly  interested  in  slavery,  and  operating  always  with  intensity 
proportioned  to  the  prevalence  of  slavery,  it  fastens  upon  other  states 
less  interested, — Tennessee,  North  Carolina,  Virginia, — and  with 
much  difficulty  is  prevented  from  enveloping  every  state  containing 
slaves,  no  matter  how  few;  for  such  is  the  malignant  poison  of  slavery 
that  only  a  few  slaves  constitute  a  slave  state  with  all  the  sympathies 
and  animosities  of  slavery.  This  is  the  rebellion  which  I  am  to  un 
mask.  Bad  as  it  is  on  its  face,  it  becomes  aggravated,  when  we  con 
sider  its  origin,  and  the  agencies  by  which  it  is  conducted.  It  is  not 
merely  a  rebellion,  but  it  is  a  rebellion  begun  in  conspiracy;  nor,  in 
all  history,  ancient  or  modern,  is  there  any  record  of  conspiracy  so 


CHARLKS   SUMNER.  543 

vast  and  so  wicked,  ranging  over  such  spaces  both  of  time  and  terri 
tory,  and  forecasting  such  results.  A  conspiracy  to  seize  a  castle,  01 
to  assassinate  a  prince  is  petty  by  the  side  of  this  enormous,  pro 
tracted  treason,  where  half  a  continent  is  seized,  studded  with  castles, 
fortresses,  and  public  edifices,  where  the  government  itself  is  over 
thrown,  and  the  President,  on  his  way  to  the  national  capital,  nar 
rowly  escapes  most  cruel  assassination. 

But  no  conspiracy  could  ripen  such  pernicious  fruit,  if  not  rooted  in 
a  soil  of  congenial  malignity.  To  appreciate  properly  this  influence, 
we  must  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  government. 

South  Carolina,  which  takes  so  forward  a  part  in  this  treason,  hesi 
tated  originally,  as  is  well  known,  with  regard  to  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  Once  her  vote  was  recorded  against  this  act;  and 
when  it  finally  prevailed,  her  vote  was  given  for  it  only  formally  and 
for  the  sake  of  seeming  unanimity.  But  so  little  was  she  inspired  by 
the  Declaration,  that,  in  the  contest  which  ensued,  her  commissioners 
made  a  proposition  to  the  British  commander  which  is  properly  char 
acterized  by  an  able  historian  as  "  equivalent  to  an  offer  from  the 
state  to  return  to  its  allegiance  to  the  British  crown."  The  hesitation 
with  regard  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  renewed  with  re 
gard  to  the  National  Constitution;  and  here  it  was  shared  by  another 
state.  Notoriously,  both  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  which  with  the 
states  carved  from  their  original  territory,  Alabama  and  Mississippi, 
constitute  the  chief  seat  of  the  conspiracy,  hesitated  in  becoming  par 
ties  to  the  Union,  and  stipulated  expressly  for  recognition  of  the  slave 
trade  in  the  National  Constitution  as  an  indispensable  condition.  In 
the  Convention,  Mr.  Rutledge,  of  South  Carolina,  while  opposing  a 
tax  on  the  importation  of  slaves,  said:  "The  true  question  at  present 
is,  whether  the  Southern  States  shall  or  shall  not  be  parties  to  the 
Union."  Mr.  Pinckney,  also  of  South  Carolina,  followed  with  the  un 
blushing  declaration:  "'South  Carolina  can  never  receive  the  plan  (of 
the  Constitution),  if  it  prohibits  the  slave  trade."  I  quote  now 
from  Mr.  Madison's  authentic  report  of  these  important  debates. 
With  shame  let  it  be  confessed,  that,  instead  of  repelling  this  disgraceful 
overture,  our  fathers  submitted  to  it,  and  in  that  submission  you  find 
the  beginning  of  present  sorrows.  The  slave  trade,  whose  annual 
iniquity  no  tongue  can  tell,  was  placed  for  twenty  years  under  the 
safeguard  of  the  Constitution,  thus  giving  sanction,  support,  and  in 
crease  to  slavery  itself.  The  language  is  modest,  but  the  intent  was 
complete.  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  were  pacified,  and  took  their 
places  in  the  Union,  to  which  they  were  openly  bound  only  by  a  most 
hateful  tie.  Regrets  for  the  past  are  not  entirely  useless,  if  out  of 
them  we  get  wisdom  for  the  future,  and  learn  to  be  brave.  It  is  easy 
to  see  now,  that,  had  the  unnatural  pretensions  of  these  States  beer* 
originally  encountered  by  stern  resistance  worthy  of  an  honest  people, 
the  present  conspiracy  would  been  crushed  before  it  saw  the  light.  Its 


5  44  A  ME  RICA  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

whole  success,  from  its  distant  beginning  down  to  this  hour,  has  been 
from  our  timidity. 

There  was  also  another  sentiment,  of  kindred  perversity,  which  pre 
vailed  in  the  same  quarter.  This  is  vividly  portrayed  by  John  Adams, 
in  a  letter  to  General  Gates,  dated  at  Philadelphia,  23d  March,  1776: — 

"  However,  my  dear  friend  Gates,  all  our  misfortunes  arise  from  a 
single  source:  the  reluctance  of  the  Southern  Colonies  to  Republican 
Government."  And  he  proceeds  to  declare  in  strong  language  that 
"  popular  principles  and  axioms  are  abhorrent  to  the  inclinations  of  the 
barons  of  the  South."  This  letter  was  written  in  the  early  days  of  the 
revolution.  At  a  later  date  John  Adams  testifies  again  to  the  discord 
between  the  North  and  the  South,  and  refers  particularly  to  the  period 
after  the  National  Constitution,  saying:  "The  Northern  and  the 
Southern  states  were  immovably  fixed  in  opposition  to  each  other.': 
This  was  before  any  question  of  tariff  or  free  trade,  and  before  the 
growing  fortunes  of  the  North  had  awakened  Southern  jealousy.  The 
whole  opposition  had  its  root  in  slavery, — as  also  had  the  earlier  re 
sistance  to  Republican  government. 

In  the  face  of  these  influences  the  Union  was  formed,  but  the  seeds 
of  conspiracy  were  latent  in  its  bosom.  The  spirit  already  revealed 
was  scarcely  silenced  ;  it  was  not  destroyed.  It  still  existed,  rankling, 
festering,  burning  to  make  itself  manifest.  At  the  mention  of  slavery 
it  always  appeared  full-armed  with  barbarous  pretensions.  Even  in 
the  first  Congress  under  the  Constitution,  at  the  presentation  of  that 
famous  petition  where  Benjamin  Franklin  simply  called  upon  Congress 
to  step  to  the  verge  of  its  power  to  discourage  every  species  of  traffic 
in  the  persons  of  our  fellow-men,  this  spirit  broke  forth  in  violent 
threats.  With  kindred  lawlessness  it  early  embraced  that  extravagant 
dogma  of  state  rights  which  has  been  ever  since  the  convenient  cloak 
of  treason  and  conspiracy.  At  the  Missouri  question,  in  1820,  it 
openly  menaced  dissolution  of  the  Union.  Instead  of  throttling  the 
monster,  we  submitted  to  feed  it  with  new  concessions.  Meanwhile 
the  conspiracy  grew,  until,  at  last,  in  1830,  under  the  influence  of  Mr. 
Calhoun,  it  assumed  the  defiant  front  of  Nullification;  nor  did  it  yield 
to  the  irresistible  logic  of  Webster  or  the  stern  will  of  Jackson  without 
a  compromise.  The  pretended  ground  of  complaint  was  the  tariff  ; 
but  Andrew  Jackson,  himself  a  patriot  slaveholder,  at  that  time  Presi 
dent,  saw  the  hollowness  of  the  complaint.  In  a  confidential  letter, 
only  recently  brought  to  light;  dated  at  Washington,  May  I,  1833,  and 
which  during  the  last  winter  I  had  the  honor  of  reading  and  holding 
up  before  the  Senatorial  conspirators  in  the  original  autograph,  he 
says: — 

"The  tariff  was  only  the  pretext,  and  disunion  and  a  Southern 
Confederacy  the  real  object.  The  next  pretext  will  be  the  negro  or 
s  c'.very  question." 

Jackson  was  undoubtedly  right;  but  the  \    >te     which  he  denounced 


CHARLES  SUAINER.  545 

in  advance  was  employed  so  constantly  afterwards  as  to  become  thread 
bare.  At  the  earliest  presentation  of  abolition  petitions, — at  the  Texas 
question, — at  the  compromises  of  1850, — at  the  Kansas  question, — at 
the  possible  election  of  Fremont, — on  all  these  occasions,  the  Union 
was  threatened  by  angry  slave-masters. 

The  conspiracy  is  unblushingly  confessed  by  recent  parties  to  it. 
Especially  was  this  done  in  the  rebel  convention  of  South  Carolina, 
where,  one  after  another,  the  witnesses  testified  all  the  same  way. 

Mr.  Parker  said  :  "  Secession  is  no  spasmodic  effort  that  has  come 
suddenly  upon  us.  It  has  been  gradually  culminating  for  a  long  pe 
riod  of  thirty  years." 

Mr.  Inglis  followed:  "  Most  of  us  have  had  this  matter  under  con 
sideration  for  the  last  twenty  years." 

Mr.  Keitt,  Representative  in  Congress,  gloried  in  his  work,  saying: 
"  I  have  been  engaged  in  this  movement  ever  since  I  entered  political 
life." 

Mr.  Rhett,  who  was  in  the  Senate  when  I  first  entered  that  body, 
and  did  not  hesitate  then  to  avow  himself  a  disunionist,  declared 
in  the  same  convention:  "  It  is  not  anything  produced  by  Mr.  Lincoln's 
election,  or  by  the  non-execution  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law;  it  is  a 
matter  which  has  been  gathering  head  for  thirty  years." 

The  conspiracy,  thus  exposed  by  Jackson,  and  confessed  by  recent 
parties  to  it,  was  quickened  by  the  growing  passion  for  slavery  through 
out  the  slave  states.  The  well-known  opinions  of  the  fathers,  the  de 
clared  convictions  of  all  most  valued  at  the  foundation  of  the  govern 
ment,  and  the  example  of  Washington  were  discarded,  and  it  was 
recklessly  avowed  that  slavery  is  a  divine  institution,  the  highest  type 
of  civilization,  a  blessing  to  master  and  slave  alike,  and  the  very  key 
stone  of  out  national  arch.  A  generation  has  grown  up  with  this 
teaching,  so  that  it  is  now  ready  to  say  with  Satan, — 

u  Evil,  be  thou  my  good  !  by  the  at  least 
Divided  empire  with  Heaven's  king  I  hold; 
By  thee,  and  more  than  half  perhaps,  will  reign: 
As  man,  ere  long,  and  this  new  world,  shall  know." 

It  is  natural  that  a  people  thus  trained  should  listen  to  the  voice  of 
•onspiracy.  Slavery  itself  is  a  constant  conspiracy;  and  its  support 
ers,  whether  in  the  slave  states,  or  elsewhere,  easily  become  indifferent 
to  all  rights  and  principles  by  which  it  may  be  constrained. 

This  rage  for  slavery  was  quickened  by  two  influences,  which  have 
exhibited  themselves  since  the  formation  of  our  Union, — one  econom 
ical,  and  the  other  political.  The  first  was  the  unexpected  importance 
c(  the  cotton  crop,  which,  through  the  labor  of  slaves  and  the  genius 
of  a  New  England  inventor,  passed  into  an  extraordinary  element  of 
wealth  and  of  imagined  strength,  so  that  we  have  all  been  summoned 
to  do  homage  to  cotton  as  king.  The  second  was  the  temptation  of 
political  power,  than  whi;h  no  influence  is  more  potent, — for  it  became 


546  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

obvious  that  this  could  be  assured  to  slavery  only  through  the  perma 
nent  preponderance  of  its  representatives  in  the  Senate;  so  that  the 
continued  control  of  all  offices  and  honors  was  made  to  depend  upon 
the  extension  of  slavery;  thus,  through  two  strong  appetites,  one  for 
gain  and  the  other  for  power,  was  slavery  stimulated ;  but  the  conspir 
acy  was  strong  only  through  slavery. 

Even  this  conspiracy,  thus  supported  and  nurtured,  would  have  been 
more  wicked  than  strong,  if  it  had  not  found  perfidious  aids  in  the 
very  cabinet  of  the  President.  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  a  slave- 
master  from  Georgia,  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  a  slavemaster  from 
Mississippi,  the  Secretary  of  War,  the  notorious  Floyd,  a  slavemaster 
from  Virginia,  and  I  fear  also  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  who  was  a 
Northern  man  with  Southern  principles,  lent  their  active  exertions. 
Through  these  eminent  functionaries  the  treason  was  organized  and  di 
rected,  while  their  important  posts  were  prostituted  to  its  infamy.  Here 
again  you  see  the  extent  of  the  conspiracy.  Never  before,  in  any 
country,  was  there  a  similar  crime  which  embraced  so  many  persons  in 
the  highest  places  of  power,  or  took  within  its  grasp  so  large  a  theatre 
of  human  action.  Anticipating  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  cabinet 
conspirators  prepared  the  way  for  rebellion. 

First,  the  army  of  the  United  States  was  so  far  dispersed  and  exiled, 
that  the  commander-in-chief  found  it  difficult,  during  the  recent  anxious 
winter,  to  bring  together  a  thousand  troops  for  the  defence  of  the  na 
tional  capital,  menaced  by  the  conspirators. 

Secondly,  the  navy  was  so  far  scattered  or  dismantled,  that  on  the  4th 
of  March,  when  the  new  administration  came  into  power,  there  were  no 
ships  to  enforce  the  laws,  collect  the  revenues,  or  protect  the  national 
property  in  the  rebel  ports.  Out  of  seventy-two  vessels  of  war,  counted 
as  our  navy,  it  appears  that  the  whole  available  force  at  home  was  re 
duced  to  the  steamer  Brooklyn,  carrying  twenty-five  guns,  and  the  store- 
ship  Relief,  carrying  two  guns. 

Thirdly,  the  forts  on  the  extensive  Southern  coast  were  so  far  aban 
doned  by  the  public  force,  that  the  larger  part,  counting  upwards  of 
1,200  cannon,  and  built  at  a  cost  of  more  than  six  million  dollars,  be 
came  at  once  an  easy  prey  to  the  rebels. 

Fourthly,  national  arms  were  transferred  from  Northern  to  Southern 
arsenals,  so  as  to  disarm  the  free  states  and  equip  the  slave  states.  This 
was  done  on  a  large  scale.  '  Upwards  of  1 15,000  arms,  of  the  latest  and 
most  approved  pattern,  were  transferred  from  the  Springfield  and  Water- 
vliet  arsenals  to  different  arsenals  in  the  slave  states,  where  they  were 
seized  by  the  rebels  ;  and  a  quarter  of  a  million  percussion  muskets 
were  sold  to  various  slave  states  for  $2.50  a  musket,  when  they  were 
worth,  it  is  said,  on  an  average,  $12.  Large  quantities  of  cannon,  mor 
tars,  powder,  ball,  and  shell  received  the  same  direction. 

Fifthly,  the  National  Treasury,  so  recently  prosperous  beyond  ex 
ample,  was  disorganized  and  plundered  even  to  the  verge  of  bankruptcy. 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  547 

Upwards  of  six  millions  are  supposed  to  have  been  stolen,  and  much  of 
this  treasure  doubtless  went  to  help  the  work  of  rebellion. 

Thus,  even  before  its  outbreak,  the  conspiracy  contrived  to  degrade 
and  despoil  the  Government,  so  as  to  secure  free  course  for  the  projected 
rebellion.  The  story  seems  incredible.  But  it  was  not  enough  to  dis 
perse  the  army,  to  scatter  the  navy,  to  abandon  forts,  to  disarm  the  free 
states,  and  to  rob  the  treasury.  The  President  of  the  United  States, 
solemnly  sworn  to  execute  the  laws,  was  won  into  a  system  of  inactivity 
amounting  to  practical  abdication  of  his  great  trust.  He  saw  treason 
plotting  to  stab  at  the  heart  of  his  country;  saw  conspiracy,  daily,  hourly, 
putting  on  the  harness  of  rebellion,  but,  though  warned  by  the  watchful 
general-in-chief,  he  did  nothing  to  arrest  it,  standing  always, 

"  like  a  painted  Jove, 
With  idle  thunder  in  his  lifted  hand." 

Ay,  more  ;  instead  of  instant  lightnings,  smiting  and  blasting  in  their 
fiery  crash,  which  an  indignant  patriotism  would  have  hurled,  he  nodded 
sympathy  and  acquiescence.  No  page  of  history  is  more  melancholy, 
because  nowhere  do  we  find  a  ruler  who  so  completely  abandoned  his 
country  ,  not  Charles  the  First  in  his  tyranny,  not  Louis  the  Sixteenth  in 
his  weakness.  Mr.  Buchanan  was  advanced  to  power  by  slave-masters, 
who  knew  well  that  he  could  be  used  for  slavery.  The  slaveholding 
conspirators  were  encouraged  to  sit  in  his  cabinet,  where  they  doubly 
betrayed  their  country,  first  by  evil  counsels,  and  then  by  disclosing 
what  passed  to  distant  slaveholding  confederates.  The  sudden  act  of 
Major  Anderson,  in  removing  from  Fort  Moultrie  to  Fort  Sumter,  and 
the  sympathetic  response  of  an  aroused  people,  compelled  a  change  of 
policy,  and  the  rebellion  received  its  first  check.  After  painful  struggle, 
it  was  decided  at  last  that  Fort  Sumter  should  be  maintained.  It  is 
difficult  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  that  decision,  which,  I  believe, 
•was  due  mainly  to  an  eminent  Democrat, — General  Cass.  This,  at 
least,  is  true — it  saved  the  national  capital. 

Meanwhile  the  conspiracy  increased  in  activity,  mastering  state  after 
state,  gathering  ^ts  forces  and  building  its  batteries.  The  time  had  come 
for  the  great  tragedy  to  begin.  "  At  Nottingham,''  says  the  great  Eng 
lish  historian,  speaking  of  King  Charles  the  First,  "he  erected  his  royal 
standard,  the  open  signal  of  discord  and  civil  war  throughout  the  king 
dom."  The  same  open  signal  now  came  from  Charleston,  when  the 
conspirators  ran  up  the  rattlesnake  flag,  and  directed  their  wicked  can 
nonade  upon  the  small,  half-famished  garrison  of  Sumter. 

Were  this  done  in  the  name  of  revolution,  or  by  virtue  of  any  revolu 
tionary  principle,  it  would  assume  a  familiar  character.  But  such  is  not 
the  case.  It  is  all  done  under  pretence  of  constitutional  right.  The 
forms  of  the  Constitution  are  seized  by  the  conspirators,  as  they  have 
already  seized  everything  else,  and  wrested  to  the  purposes  of  treason. 
It  is  audaciously  declared,  that,  under  the  existing  Constitution,  each 


5  4  8  A  If  ERICA  N  PA  T1UO  7  Y6.I7. 

state,  in  the  exercise  of  its  own  discretion,  may  withdraw  from  the 
Union  ;  and  this  asserted  right  of  secession  is  invoked  as  cover  for 
rebellion  begun  in  conspiracy.  The  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  is  made  the 
occasion  for  the  exercise  of  this  pretended  right  ;  certain  opinions  at 
the  North  on  the  subject  of  slavery  are  made  the  pretext. 

Who  will  not  deny  that  this  election  can  be  a  just  occasion? 

Who  will  not  condemn  the  pretext? 

But  both  occasion  and  pretext  are  determined  by  slavery,  and  thus 
testify  to  the  part  it  constantly  performs. 

The  pretended  right  of  secession  is  not  less  monstrous  than  the  pre 
text  or  the  occasion;  and  this,  too,  is  born  of  slavery.  It  belongs  to 
that  brood  of  assumptions  and  perversions  of  which  slavery  is  prolific 
parent.  Wherever  slavery  prevails,  this  pretended  right  is  recognized, 
and  generally  with  an  intensity  proportioned  to  the  prevalence  of 
slavery — as,  for  instance,  in  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi  more  in- 
tenre'.y  than  in  Tennessee  and  Kentucky.  It  may  be  considered  a 
fixed  part  of  the  slave-holding  system.  A  pretended  right  to.  set  aside 
the  Constitution,  to  the  extent  of  breaking  up  the  government,  is  tlie 
natural  companion  of  the  pretended  right  to  set  aside  human  nature, 
making  merchandise  of  men.  They  form  a  well-matched  couple,  and 
travel  well  together, — destined  to  perish  together.  If  we  do  not  over 
flow  toward  the  former  with  the  same  indignation  which  we  feel  for  the 
latter,  it  is  because  its  absurdity  awakens  our  contempt.  An  English 
poet  of  the  last  century  exclaims,  in  mocking  verses, — 

"  Crowned  be  the  man  with  lasting  praise 

Who  first  contrived  the  pin, 
To  loose  mad  horses  from  the  chaise, 
And  save  the  necks  within." 

Such  is  the  impossible  contrivance  now  attempted.  Nothing  is  clearer 
than  that  this  pretension,  if  acknowledged,  leaves  to  every  state  the 
right  to  play  the  "mad  horse,"  with  very  little  chance  of  saving  any 
thing.  It  takes  from  the  government  not  merely  unity,  but  ail  se 
curity  of  national  life,  and  reduces  it  to  the  shadow  of  a  name,  or,  at 
best,  a  mere  tenancy  at  will — an  unsubstantial  form,  t(±  be  decomposed 
at  the  touch  of  a  single  state.  Of  course,  such  an  anarchical  preten 
sion,  so  instinct  with  all  the  lawlessness  of  slavery,  must  be  encoun 
tered  peremptorily.  It  is  not  enough  to  declare  dissent.  We  must  so 
conduct  as  not  to'give  it  recognition  or  foothold. 

Instead  of  scouting  this  pretension,  and  utterly  spurning  it,  new 
concessions  to  slavery  were  gravely  propounded  as  the  means  of  paci 
fication — like  a  new  sacrifice  offered  to  an  obscene  divinity.  It  was 
argued,  that  in  this  way  the  border  states  at  least  might  be  preserved 
to  the  Union,  and  some  of  the  cotton  states  perhaps  won  back  to  duty 
in  other  words,  that,  in  consideration  of  such  concessions,  these  states 
would  consent  to  waive  a  present  exercise  of  the  pretended  right  of 
secession.  Against  all  such  propositions,  without  considering  their 


CHARLES  SUMMER.  549 

character,  stands  on  the  threshold  one  obvious  and  imperative  objec 
tion.  It  is  clear  that  the  very  bargain  or  understanding,  whether  ex 
press  or  implied,  is  a  recognition  of  this  pretended  right,  and  that  a 
state  yielding  only  to  such  appeal,  and  detained  through  concessions, 
practically  asserts  the  claim,  and  holds  it  for  future  exercise.  Thus  a 
concession  called  small  becomes  infinite;  for  it  concedes  the  pretended 
right  of  secession,  and  makes  the  permanence  of  the  national  govern 
ment  impossible.  Amidst  all  the  grave  responsibilities  of  the  hour, 
we  must  take  care  that  the  life  of  the  republic  is  sacredly  preserved. 
B:it  this  would  be  sacrificed  at  once,  did  we  submit  its  existence  to  the 
conditions  proposed. 

Looking  at  these  concessions,  I  have  always  found  them  utterly  un 
reasonable  and  indefensible.  I  should  not  expose  them  now,  if  they 
did  not  testify  constantly  to  the  origin  and  mainspring  of  this  rebel 
lion.  Slavery  was  always  the  single  subject-matter,  and  nothing  else. 
Slavery  was  not  only  an  integral  part  of  every  concession,  but  the 
single  integer.  The  one  idea  was  to  give  some  new  security,  in  some 
form,  to  slavery.  That  brilliant  statesman,  Mr.  Canning,  in  one  of 
those  eloquent  speeches  which  charm  so  much  by  style,  said  that  he 
was  "tired  of  being  a  security-grinder;"  but  his  experience  was  not 
comparable  to  ours.  "Security-grinding,"  in  the  name  of  slavery, 
has  been  for  years  the  way  in  which  we  have  wrestled  with  this  con 
spiracy  ! 

The  propositions  at  the  last  Congress  began  with  the  President's 
Message,  which  in  itself  was  one  tedious  concession.  You  cannot 
forget  his  sympathetic  portraiture  of  the  disaffection  throughout  the 
slave  states,  or  his  testimony  to  the  cause.  Notoriously  and  shame 
fully  his  heart  was  with  the  conspirators,  and  he  knew  intimately  the 
mainspring  of  their  conduct.  He  proposed  nothing  short  of  general 
surrender;  and  thus  did  he  proclaim  slavery  as  the  head  and  front, 
the  very  causa  cattsans,  of  the  whole  crime. 

Nor  have  you  forgotten  the  Peace  Conference,  as  it  was  delusively 
styled,  convened  at  Washington  on  the  summons  of  Virginia,  with 
John  Tyler  in  the  chair,  where  New  York,  as  well  as  Massachusetts, 
was  represented  by  her  ablest  and  most  honored  citizens.  The  ses 
sions  were  with  closed  doors;  but  it  is  now  known  that  throughout 
the  proceedings,  lasting  for  weeks,  nothing  was  discussed  but  slavery. 
And  the  propositions  finally  adopted  by  the  convention  were  confined 
to  slavery.  Forbearing  all  detail,  it  will  be  enough  to  say  that  they 
undertook  to  provide  positive  protection  for  slavery  under  the  Consti 
tution,  with  new  sanction  and  immunity — making  it,  notwithstanding 
the  determination  of  our  fathers,  national  instead  of  sectional;  and 
even  more,  making  it  an  essential  and  permanent  part  of  our  repub 
lican  system.  Slavery  is  sometimes  deceitful,  as  at  other  times  bold; 
and  these  propositions  were  still  further  offensive  from  their  studied 
uncertainty,  amounting  to  positive  duplicity.  At  a  moment  when 


550  AMERICAX  PATRIOTISM. 

frankness  was  needed  above  all  things,  we  were  treated  to  phrases 
pregnant  with  doubt  and  controversy,  and  were  gravely  asked,  in  the 
name  of  slavery,  to  embody  them  in  the  national  Constitution. 

There  was  another  string  of  propositions  much  discussed  during  the 
last  winter,  which  acquired  the  name  of  the  venerable  senator  from 
whom  they  came — Mr.  Crittenden,  of  Kentucky.  These  also  related  to 
slavery,  and  nothing  else.  They  were  more  obnoxious  even  than 
those  from  the  Peace  Conference.  And  yet  there  were  petitioners  from 
the  North,  even  from  Massachusetts,  who  prayed  for  this  great  sur 
render.  Considering  the  character  of  these  propositions — that  they 
sought  to  change  the  Constitution  in  a  manner  revolting  to  the  moral 
sense,  to  foist  into  its  very  body  the  idea  of  property  in  man,  to  pro 
tect  slavery  in  all  present  territory  south  of  36  degrees,  30  minutes, 
and  to  carry  it  into  all  territory  hereafter  acquired  south  of  that  line, 
and  thus  to  make  our  beautiful  Stars  and  Stripes  in  their  southern 
march  the  flag  of  infamy — considering  that  they  provided  new  consti 
tutional  securities  for  slavery  in  the  national  capital  and  in  other  places 
within  the  exclusive  national  jurisdiction,  new  constitutional  securities 
for  the  transit  of  slaves  from  state  to  state,  opening  the  way  to  a  roll- 
call  of  slaves  at  the  foot  of  Bunker  Hill  or  the  door  of  Faneuil  Hall, 
and  also  the  disfranchisement  of  nearly  ten  thousand  of  my  fellow- 
citizens  in  Massachusetts,  whose  rights  are  fixed  by  the  constitution 
of  that  commonwealth,  drawn  by  John  Adams — considering  these 
things,  I  felt  at  the  time,  and  I  still  feel,  that  the  best  apology  of  these 
petitioners  was  that  they  were  ignorant  of  their  true  character,  and 
that  in  signing  the  petition  they  knew  not  what  they  did.  But  even 
in  their  ignorance  they  bore  witness  to  slavery,  while  the  propositions 
were  the  familiar  voice  of  slavery  crying,  "Give  !  give  !" 

There  was  another  single  proposition  from  still  another  quarter,  but, 
like  all  the  rest,  it  related  exclusively  to  slavery.  It  was  to  insert  in 
the  text  of  the  Constitution  a  stipulation  against  any  future  amend 
ment  authorizing  Congress  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  states.  If 
you  read  this  proposition,  you  will  find  it  crude  and  ill-shaped — a  jar 
gon  of  bad  grammar,  a  jumble  and  hodge-podge  of  words — harmoniz 
ing  poorly  with  the  accurate  text  of  our  Constitution.  But  even  if 
tolerable  in  form,  it  was  obnoxious,  like  the  rest,  as  a  fresh  stipulation 
in  favor  of  slavery.  Sufficient,  surely,  in  this  respect,  is  the  actual 
Constitution.  Beyond  this  I  cannot,  I  will  not  go.  What  Wash 
ington,  Franklin,  Madison,  and  Hamilton  would  not  insert  we  cannot 
err  in  reject'n;^. 

I  do  not  dwell  on  other  propositions,  because  they  attracted  less  at 
tention;  and  yet  among  these  was  one  to  overturn  the  glorious  safe 
guards  of  freedom  set  up  in  the  free  states,  known  as  the  Personal 
Liberty  Laws.  Here  again  was  slavery — with  a  vengeance. 

There  is  one  remark  which  I  desire  to  make  with  regard  to  all  these 
propositions.  It  was  sometimes  said  that  the  concessions  ihev  offered 


CHARLES   SUMNER.  551 

were  "small."  What  a  mistake  is  this!  No  concession  to  slavery 
can  be  "small."  Freedom  is  priceless,  and  in  this  simple  rule  alike  of 
morals  and  jurisprudence  you  find  the  just  measure  of  any  concession, 
how  small  soever  it  may  seem,  by  which  freedom  is  sacrificed.  Tell  me 
not  that  it  concers  a  few  only.  I  do  not  forget  the  saying  of  antiquity, 
that  the  best  government  is  where  an  injury  to  a  single  individual  is 
resented  as  an  injury  to  the  whole  state;  nor  am  I  indifferent  to  *  that 
memorable  instance  of  our  own  recent  history,  where,  in  a  distant  sea, 
the  thunders  of  our  navy,  with  all  the  hazards  of  war,  were  aroused  to 
protect  the  liberty  of  a  solitary  person  claiming  the  rights  of  an  Ameri 
can  citizen.  By  such  examples  let  me  be  guided,  rather  than  by  the 
suggestion,  that  human  freedom,  whether  in  many  or  in  few,  is  of  so 
little  value  that  it  may  be  put  in  the  market  to  appease  a  traitorous 
conspiracy,  or  soothe  accessories,  who,  without  such  concession, 
threaten  to  join  the  conspirators. 

And  now,  after  this  review,  I  am  brought  again  to  the  significance 
of  that  Presidential  election  with  which  I  began.  The  slave-masters 
entered  into  that  election  with  Mr.  Breckinridge  as  their  candidate, 
and  their  platform  claimed  constitutional  protection  for  slavery  in  all 
territories,  whether  now  belonging  to  the  Republic  or  hereafter  ac 
quired.  This  concession  was  the  ultimatum  on  which  was  staked 
their  continued  loyalty  to  the  Union, — as  the  continuance  of  the  slave- 
trade  was  the  original  condition  on  which  South  Carolina  and  Georgia 
entered  the  Union.  And  the  reason,  though  criminal,  was  obvious. 
It  was  because  without  such  opportunity  of  expansion  slavery  would 
be  stationary,  while  the  free  states,  increasing  in  number,  would  ob 
tain  a  fixed  preponderance  in  the  National  Government,  assuring  to 
them  the  political  power.  Thus  at  that  election  the  banner  of  the 
slave-masters  had  for  open  device,  not  the  Union  as  it  is,  but  the  ex 
tension  and  perpetuation  of  human  bondage.  The  popular  vote  was 
against  further  concession,  and  the  conspirators  proceeded  with  their 
crime.  The  occasion  so  long  sought  had  come.  The  pretext  fore 
seen  by  Andrew  Jackson  was  the  motive  power. 

Here  mark  well,  that,  in  their  whole  conduct,  the  conspirators  acted 
naturally,  under  instincts  implanted  by  slavery  ;  nay,  they  acted  logi 
cally  even.  Such  is  slavery,  that  it  cannot  exist,  unless  it  owns  the 
Government.  An  injustice  so  plain  can  find  protection  only  from  a 
Government  which  is  a  reflection  of  itself.  Cannibalism  cannot  exist 
except  under  a  government  of  cannibals.  Idolatry  cannot  exist  ex 
cept  under  a  government  of  idolaters.  And  slavery  cannot  exist  ex 
cept  under  a  government  of  slave-masters.  This  is  positive,  universal 
truth, — at  St.  Petersburg,  Constantinople,  Timbuctoo,  or  Washington. 
The  slave-masters  of  our  country  saw  that  they  were  dislodged  from 
the  national  government,  and  straightway  they  rebelled.  The  Re 
public,  which  they  could  no  longer  rule,  they  determined  to  ruin.  And 
now  the  issue  is  joined.  Slavery  must  either  rule  or  die. 


552  A  MERIL  \4  N  PA  7  'RIO  TISM. 

Though  thus  audaciously  criminal,  the  slave-masters  are  not  strong 
in  numbers.  The  whole  number,  great  and  small,  according  to  the 
recent  census,  is  not  more  than  four  hundred  thousand,  of  whom  there 
are  less  than  one  hundred  thousand  interested  to  any  considerable  ex 
tent  in  this  peculiar  species  of  property.  And  yet  this  petty  oligarchy 
— itself  controlled  by  a  squad  still  more  petty — in  a  population  of  many 
millions,  has  aroused  and  organized  this  gigantic  rebellion.  But  suc 
cess  is  explained  by  two  considerations.  First,  the  asserted  value  of 
the  slaves,  reaching  at  this  date  to  the  enormous  sum-total  of  two 
thousand  millions  of  dollars,  constitutes  an  overpowering  property 
interest,  one  of  the  largest  in  the  world — greatly  increased  by  the  in 
tensity  and  unity  of  purpose  naturally  belonging  to  the  representa 
tives  of  such  a  sum-total,  stimulated  by  the  questionable  character  of 
the  property.  But,  secondly,  it  is  a  phenomenon  attested  by  the  his 
tory  of  revolutions,  that  all  such  movements,  at  least  in  their  early 
days,  are  controlled  by  minorities.  This  is  because  a  revolutionary 
minority,  once  embarked,  has  before  it  only  the  single,  simple  path  of 
unhesitating  action.  While  others  doubt  or  hold  back,  the  minority 
strikes  and  goes  forward.  Audacity  then  counts  more  than  numbers, 
and  crime  counts  more  than  virtue.  This  phenomenon  has  been  ob 
served  before.  "Often  have  I  reflected  with  awe,"  says  Coleridge, 
' '  on  the  great  and  disproportionate  power  which  an  individual  of  no  ex 
traordinary  talents  or  attainments  may  exert  by  merely  throwing  off 
all  restraint  of  conscience.  .  .  .  The  abandonment  of  all  principle  of 
right  enables  the  soul  to  choose  and  act  upon  a  principle  of  wrong, 
and  to  subordinate  to  this  one  principle  all  the  various  vices  of  human 
nature."  These  are  remarkable  and  most  suggestive  words.  But 
when  was  a  "  principle  of  wrong"  followed  with  more  devotion  than 
by  our  rebels  ? 

The  French  Revolution  furnishes  authentic  illustration  of  a  few  pre 
dominating  over  a  great  change.  Among  the  good  men  at  that  time 
who  followed  "principles  of  right"  were  others  with  whom  success 
was  the  primary  object,  while  even  good  men  sometimes  forgot  good 
ness  ;  but  at  each  stage  a  minority  gave  the  law.  Petion,  the  famous 
mayor  of  Paris,  boasted,  that,  when  he  began,  "  there  were  but  five 
men  in  France  who  wished  a  republic."  From  a  contemporary  de 
bate  in  the  British  Parliament,  it  appears  that  the  asserted  power  of  a 
minority  was  made  the  express  ground  of  appeal  by  French  revolu 
tionists  to  the  people  of  other  countries.  Sheridan,  in  a  brilliant 
speech,  dwells  on  this  appeal,  and  by  mistake  ascribes  to  Condorcet 
the  unequivocal  utterances,  that  "revolutions  must  always  be  the 
work  of  the  minority," — that  "  every  revolution  is  the  work  of  a  min 
ority," — that  "  the  French  Revolution  was  accomplished  by  the  min 
ority."  This  philosopher,  who  sealed  his  principles  by  a  tragical 
death,  did  say,  in  an  address  to  the  parliamentary  reformers  of  Eng 
land,  that  from  parliamentary  reform  "the  passage  to  the  complete 


CHARLES  SL'MXER.  553 

establishment  of  a  republic  would  be  short  and  easy;"  but  it  was  Cam- 
bon,  the  financier  of  the  Revolution,  and  one  of  its  active  supporters, 
who,  in  the  National  Convention,  put  forth  the  cries  attributed  to  Con- 
dorcet.  The  part  of  the  minority  was  also  attested  by  Brissot  cle 
Warville,  who  imputed  the  triumph  of  the  Jacobins,  under  whose 
bloody  sway  his  own  life  became  a  sacrifice,  to  "  some  twenty  men," 
or,  as  he  says  in  another  place,  "  a  score  of  anarchists,"  and  then 
again,  "  a  club,  or  rather  a  score  of  those  robbers  who  direct  that 
club." 

The  future  historian  will  record,  that  the  present  rebellion,  notwith 
standing  its  protracted  origin,  the  multitudes  it  enlisted,  and  its  ex 
tensive  sweep,  was  at  last  precipitated  by  fewer  than  twenty  men, — 
Mr.  Everett  says  by  as  few  as  eight  or  ten.  It  is  certain  that  thus  far 
it  has  been  the  triumph  of  a  minority, — but  of  a  minority  moved,  in 
spired,  combined,  and  aggrandized  by  slavery. 

And  now  this  traitorous  minority,  putting  aside  the  sneaking,  slimy 
devices  of  conspiracy,  steps  forth  in  full  panoply  of  war.  Assuming 
all  functions  of  government,  it  organizes  states  under  a  common  head, 
— sends  ambassadors  into  foreign  countries, — kvies  taxes, — borrows 
money, — issues  letters  of  marque, — and  sets  armies  in  the  field,  sum 
moned  from'  distant  Georgia,  Louisiana,  and  Texas,  as  well  as  from 
nearer  Virginia,  and  composed  of  the  whole  lawless  population,  the 
poor  who  cannot  own  slaves  as  well  as  the  rich  who  pretend  to  own 
them,  throughout  the  extensive  region  where  with  Satanic  grasp  this 
Slave-Master  minority  claims  for  itself 

"  ample  room  and  verge  enough 
The  characters  of  Hell  to  trace." 

Pardon  the  language  I  employ.  The  words  of  the  poet  picture  not 
too  strongly  the  object  proposed.  And  now  these  parricidal  hosts 
stand  arrayed  against  that  paternal  government  to  which  they  owe 
loyalty,  defence,  and  affection.  Never  in  history  did  rebellion  assume 
such  front.  Call  their  number  400,000  or  200,000, — what  you  will, — 
they  far  surpass  any  armed  forces  ever  before  marshalled  in  rebellion; 
they  are  among  the  largest  ever  marshalled  in  war. 

All  this  is  in  the  name  of  slavery,  and  for  the  sake  of  slavery,  and  at 
the  bidding  of  slavery.  The  profligate  favorite  of  the  English  mon 
arch,  the  famous  Duke  of  Buckingham,  was  not  more  exclusively 
supreme,  even  according  to  the  words  by  which  he  was  placarded  to 
the  judgment  of  his  contemporaries: — 

"  Who  rules  the  kingdom  ?    The  King. 
Who  rules  the  King  ?     The  Duke. 
Who  rules  the  Duke  ?    The  Devil. 

Nor  according  to  that  decree  by  which  the  House  of  Commons  olcchrr"! 
him  "the  cause  of  all  the  national  calamities."  The  dnmim 


554  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

the  royal  favorite  belongs  now  to  slavery,  which  is  the  cause  of  all  the 
national  calamities,  while  in  the  Rebel  States  it  is  a  more  than  royal 
favorite. 

"  Who  rules  the  Rebel  States  ?    The  President. 

Who  rules  the  President  ?    Slavery. 

Who  rules  Slavery. 

The  last  question  I  need  not  answer.  But  all  must  see — and  nobody 
will  deny — that  slavery  is  the  ruling  idea  of  this  rebellion.  It  is  sla 
very  that  marshals  these  hosts  and  breathes  into  their  embattled  ranks 
its  own  barbarous  fire.  It  is  slavery  that  stamps  its  character  alike 
upon  officers  and  men.  It  is  slavery  that  inspires  all,  from  general  to 
trumpeter.  It  is  slavery  that  speaks  in  the  word  of  command  and 
sounds  in  the  morning  drum-beat.  It  is  slavery  that  digs  trenches  and 
builds  hostile  forts.  It  is  slavery  that  pitches  its  wicked  tents  and  sta 
tions  its  sentries  over  against  the  national  capital.  It  is  slavery  that 
sharpens  the  bayonet  and  runs  the  bullet, — that  points  the  cannon  and 
scatters  the  shell,  blazing,  bursting  with  death.  Wherever  this  rebel 
lion  shows  itself,  whatever  form  it  takes,  whatever  thing  it  does,  what 
ever  it  meditates,  it  is  moved  by  slavery;  nay,  the  rebellion  is  slavery 
itself,  incarnate,  living,  acting,  raging,  robbing,  murdering,  according 
to  the  essential  law  of  its  being. 

Not  this  is  all.  The  rebellion  is  not  only  ruled  by  slavery  but, 
owing  to  the  peculiar  condition  of  the  slave  states,  it  is  for  the  moment, 
according  to  their  instinctive  boast,  actually  reinforced  by  this  institu 
tion.  As  the  fields  of  the  South  are  cultivated  by  slaves,  and  labor 
there  is  performed  by  this  class,  the  white  freemen  are  at  liberty  to 
play  the  part  of  rebels.  The  slaves  toil  at  home,  while  the  masters 
work  at  rebellion;  and  thus,  by  singular  fatality,  is  this  doomed  race, 
without  taking  up  arms,  actually  engaged  in  feeding,  supporting,  suc 
coring,  invigorating  those  battling  for  their  enslavement. 

But  slavery  must  be  seen  not  only  in  what  it  does  for  the  rebellion, 
of  which  it  is  indisputable  head,  fountain  and  life,  but  also  in  what  it 
inflicts  upon  us.  There  is  not  a  community,  not  a  family,  not  an  in 
dividual,  man,  woman,  or  child,  that  does  not  feel  its  heavy,  bloody 
hand.  Why  these  mustering  armies  ?  Why  this  drum-beat  in  your 
peaceful  streets  ?  WThy  these  gathering  means  of  war  ?  Why  these 
swelling  taxes  ?  Why  these  unprecedented  loans  ?  Why  this  derange 
ment  of  business  ?  Why  among  us  habeas  corpus  suspended,  and  all 
safeguards  of  freedom  prostrate  ?  Why  this  constant  solicitude  visi 
ble  in  your  faces  ?  The  answer  is  clear.  Slavery  is  author,  agent, 
cause.  The  anxious  hours  that  you  pass  are  darkened  by  slavery. 
Habeas  corpus  and  the  safeguards  of  freedom  which  you  deplore  are 
ravished  by  slavery.  The  business  you  have  lost  is  filched  by  slavery. 
The  millions  now  amassed  by  patriotic  offerings  are  all  snatched  by 
slavery.  The  taxes  now  wrung  out  of  diminished  means  are  all  con- 
buined  by  slavery.  And  all  these  multiplying  means  of  war,  this  drum- 


CHARLES  SUM  NEK,  555 

call  in  your  peaceful  streets,  and  these  gathering  armies,  are  on  ac 
count  of  slavery,  and  that  alone.  Are  the  poor  constrained  to  forego 
their  customary  tea,  or  coffee,  or  sugar,  now  burdened  by  intolerable 
taxation  ?  Let  them  vow  themselves  anew  against  the  criminal  giant 
taxgatherer.  Does  any  community  mourn  gallant  men,  who,  going 
forth  joyous  and  proud  beneath  their  country's  flag,  have  been  brought 
home  cold  and  stiff,  with  its  folds  wrapped  about  them  for  a  shroud. 
Let  all  mourning  the  patriot  dead  be  aroused  against  slavery.  Does 
a  mother  drop  tears  for  her  son  in  the  beautiful  morning  of  his  days 
cut  down  upon  the  distant  battle-field,  which  he  moistens  with  his 
youthful,  generous  blood  ?  Let  her  feel  that  slavery  dealt  the  deadly 
blow  which  took  at  once  his  life  and  her  peace. 

I  hear  a  strange,  discordant  voice  saying  that  all  this  proceeds  not 
from  slavery, — oh,  no  ! — but  from  anti-slavery, — that  the  Republicans, 
who  hate  slavery,  that  the  Abolitionists,  are  authors  of  this  terrible 
calamity.  You  must  suspect  the  sense  of  loyalty  of  him  who  puts 
forth  this  irrational  and  utterly  wicked  imputation.  As  well  say  that  the 
early  Christians  were  authors'  of  the  heathen  enormities  against  which 
they  bore  martyr  testimony,  and  that  the  cross,  the  axe,  the  gridiron, 
and  the  boiling  oil,  by  which  they  suffered,  were  part  of  the  Christian 
dispensation  But  the  early  Christians  were  misrepresented  and 
falsely  charged  with  crime,  even  as  you  are.  The  tyrant  Nero,  after 
burning  Rome  and  dancing  at  the  conflagration,  denounced  Christians 
as  the  guilty  authors.  Here  are  authentic  words  by  the  historian 
Tacitus.— 

''  So,  for  the  quieting  of  this  rumor,  Nero  judicially  charged  with  the 
crime,  and  punished  with  most  studied  severities,  that  class,  hated  for 
their  general  wickedness,  whom  the  vulgar  call  Christians.  Theorigi- 
nater  of  that  name  was  one  Christ,  who,  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  suf 
fered  death  by  sentence  of  the  procurator  Pontius  Pilate.  The  bane 
ful  superstition,  thereby  repressed  for  the  time,  again  broke  out,  not 
only  over  Judea,  the  native  soil  of  that  mischief,  but  in  the  city  also, 
where  from  every  side  all  atrocious  and  abominable  things  collect  and 
flourish." 

The  writer  of  this  remarkable  passage  was  the  wisest  and  most 
penetrating  mind  of  his  generation,  and  he  lived  close  upon  the  events 
which  he  describes.  Listening  to  him,  you  may  find  apology  for  those 
among  us  who  heap  upon  contemporaries  similar  obloquy.  Abolition 
ists  need  no  defence  from  me.  It  is  to  their  praise — destined  to  fill 
an  immortal  page — that  from  the  beginning  they  saw  the  true  charac 
ter  of  slavery,  and  warned  against  its  threatening  domination. 
Through  them  the  fires  of  liberty  have  been  kept  alive  in  our  country 
—  as  Hume  is  constrained  to  confess,  that  these  same  fires  were  kept 
alive  In  England  by  the  Puritans,  whom  this  great  historian  never 
praised,  if  he  could  help  it.  And  yet  they  are  charged  with  this  rebellion. 
Can  this  be  serious  ?  Even  at  the  beginning  of  the  Republic  the  seeds 


556  A  MEK  1C  A  .V  PA  TRIO  7  'ISM. 

of  the  conspiracy  were  planted,  and  in  1820,  and  again  in  1830,  it  ap 
peared — while  nearly  thirty  years  ago  Andrew  Jackson  denounced  it, 
and  one  of  its  leading  spirits  recently  boasted  that  it  has  been  gath 
ering  head  for  this  full  time,  thus,  not  only  in  distant  embryo,  but  in 
well  -  attested  development,  antedating  those  Abolitionists  whose 
prophetic  patriotism  is  made  an  apology  for  the  crime.  As 
well,  when  the  prudent  passenger  warns  the  ship's  crew  of  the 
fatal  lee-shore,  arraign  him  for  the  wreck  which  engulfs  all;  as  well 
cry  out,  that  the  philosopher  who  foresees  the  storm  is  responsible  for 
the  desolation  which  ensues  ;  or  that  the  astronomer,  who  cal 
culates  the  eclipse,  is  the  author  of  the  darkness  which  covers  the 
earth. 

Nothing  can  surpass  that  early  contumely  to  which  Christians  were 
exposed.  To  the  polite  heathen,  they  were  only  "workers  in  wool, 
cobblers,  fullers,  the  rudest  and  most  illiterate  persons;"  or  they  were 
men  and  women  "  from  the  lowest  dregs."  Persecution  naturally 
followed,  not  only  local,  but  general.  As  many  as  ten  persecutions 
are  cited — two  under  mild  rulers  like  Trajan  and  Hadrian — while  at 
the  atrocious  command  of  Nero,  Christians,  wrapped  in  pitch,  were 
set  on  fire  as  lights  to  illumine  the  public  gardens.  And  yet  against 
contumely  and  persecution  Christianity  prevailed,  and  the  name  of 
Christian  became  an  honor  which  confessors  and  martyrs  wore  as  a 
crown.  But  this  painful  history  prefigures  that  of  our  Abolitionists, 
who  have  been  treated  with  similar  contumely;  nor  have  they  escaped 
persecution. 

At  last  the  time  has  come  when  their  cause  must  prevail,  and  their 
name  become  an  honor. 

And  now,  that  I  may  give  practical  character  to  this  whole  history, 
I  bring  it  all  to  bear  upon  our  present  situation,  and  its  duties.  You 
have  discerned  slavery,  even  before  the  National  Union,  not  only  a 
disturbing  influence,  but  an  actual  bar  to  union,  except  on  condition  of 
surrender  to  its  immoral  behests.  You  have  watched  slavery  con 
stantly  militant  on  the  presentation  of  any  proposition  with  regard  to 
it,  and  more  than  once  threatening  dissolution  of  the  Union.  You 
have  discovered  slavery  for  many  years  the  animating  principle  of  a 
conspiracy  against  the  Union,  while  it  matured  flagitious  plans  and 
obtained  the  mastery  of  Cabinet  and  President.  And  when  the  con 
spiracy  had  banefully  ripened,  you  have  seen  how  only  by  concessions 
to  slavery  it  was  encountered,  as  by  similar  concessions  it  had  from 
the  beginning  been  encouraged.  Now  you  behold  rebellion  every 
where  throughout  the  slave  states  elevating  its  bloody  crest  and  threat 
ening  the  existence  of  the  national  government,  and  all  in  the  name 
of  slavery,  while  it  sets  up  a  pretended  government  whose  corner 
stone  is  slavery. 

Against  this  rebellion  we  wage  war.  It  is  our  determination,  as  it 
is  our  duty,  to  crush  it;  and  this  will  be  done.  Nor  am  I  disturbed  by 


CHARLES   SUMNER.  557 

any  success  which  the  rebels  may  seem  to  obtain.  The  ancient  Ro- 
num,  who,  confident  in  the  destiny  of  the  Republic,  bought  the  field 
on  which  the  conquering  Hannibal  was  encamped,  is  a  fit  example  for 
us.  I  would  not  have  less  trust  than  his.  The  rebel  states  are  our 
fields.  The  region  now  contested  by  the  rebels  belongs  to  the  United 
States  by  every  tie  of  government  and  of  right.  Some  of  it  has  been 
bought  with  our  money,  while  all  of  it,  with  the  rivers,  harbors,  and 
extensive  coast,  has  become  essential  to  our  business  in  peace  and  to 
our  defence  in  war.  Union  is  a  geographical,  economical,  commercial, 
political,  military,  and  (if  I  may  so  say)  even  a  fluvial  necessity.  With 
out  union,  peace  on  this  continent  is  impossible;  but  life  without  peace 
is  impossible  also. 

Only  by  crushing  this  rebellion  can  union  and  peace  be  restored. 
Let  this  be  seen  in  its  reality,  and  who  can  hesitate  ?  If  this  were 
done  instantly,  without  further  contest,  then,  besides  all  the  countless 
advantages  of  every  kind  obtained  by  such  restoration,  two  special 
goods  will  be  accomplished — one  political,  and  the  other  moral  as  well 
as  political.  First,  the  pretended  right  of  secession,  with  the  whole 
pestilent  extravagance  of  state  sovereignty,  supplying  the  machinery 
for  this  rebellion,  and  affording  a  delusive  cover  for  treason,  will  be 
trampled  out,  never  again  to  disturb  the  majestic  unity  of  the  Repub 
lic;  and,  secondly,  the  unrighteous  attempt  to  organize  a  new  confed 
eracy,  solely  for  the  sake  of  slavery,  and  with  slavery  as  its  corner 
stone  tvill  be  overthrown. 

These  two  pretensions,  one  so  shocking  to  our  reason  and  the 
other  so  shocking  to  our  moral  nature,  will  disappear  forever  And 
with  their  disappearance  will  date  a  new  epoch,  the  beginning  of  a 
grander  age.  If  by  any  accident  the  rebellion  should  prevail,  then, 
just  in  proportion  to  its  triumph,  through  concession  on  our  part  or 
successful  force  on  the  other  part,  will  the  Union  be  impaired  and 
peace  be  impossible.  Therefore,  in  the  name  of  the  Union  and  for 
the  sake  of  peace  are  you  summoned  to  the  work. 

But  how  shall  the  rebellion  be  crushed?  That  is  the  question 
Men,  money,  munitions  of  war,  a  well-supplied  commissariat,  means 
of  transportation — all  these  you  have  in  abundance,  in  some  particu 
lars  beyond  the  rebels.  You  have,  too,  the  consciousness  of  a  good 
cause,  which  in  itself  is  an  army.  And  yet  thus  far,  until  within  a 
few  days,  the  advantage  has  not  been  on  our  side.  The  explanation 
is  easy.  The  rebels  are  combating  at  home,  on  their  own  soil, 
strengthened  and  maddened  by  slavery,  which  is  to  them  ally  and  fa 
naticism.  More  thoroughly  aroused  than  ourselves,  more  terribly  in 
earnest,  with  every  sinew  vindictively  strained  to  its  most  perfect 
work,  they  freely  use  all  the  means  that  circumstances  put  into  their 
hands — not  only  raising  against  us  their  white  population,  but  fellow- 
shiping  the  savagery  of  the  Indian,  cruising  upon  the  sea  in  pirate 
ships  to  despoil  our  commerce,  and  at  one  swoop  confiscating  our 


553  AM  ERIC  AX  PATRIOTISM. 

property  to  the  amount  of  hundreds  of  millions,  while  all  this  time 
their  four  million  slaves  undisturbed  at  home  freely  contribute  by  their 
labor  to  sustain  the  war,  which  without  them  must  soon  expire. 

It  remains  for  us  to  encounter  the  rebellion  calmly  and  surely  by  a 
force  superior  to  its  own.  To  this  end,  something  more  is  needed 
than  men  or  money.  Our  battalions  must  be  reinforced  by  ideas,  and 
we  must  strike  directly  at  the  origin  and  mainspring.  I  do  not  say 
now  in  what  way  or  to  what  extent ;  but  only  that  we  must  strike  :  it 
may  be  by  the  system  of  a  Massachusetts  general — Butler;  it  may  be 
by  that  of  Fremont,  or  it  maybe  by  the  grander  system  of  John  Quincy 
Adams. 

Reason  and  sentiment  both  concur  in  this  policy,  which  is  ac 
cording  to  the  most  common  principles  of  human  conduct.  In  no 
way  can  we  do  so  much  at  so  little  cost.  To  the  enemy  such  a  blow 
will  be  a  terror,  to  good  men  it  will  appear  to  be  an  encouragement, 
and  to  foreign  nations  watching  this  contest  it  will  be  an  earnest  of 
something  beyond  a  mere  carnival  of  battle.  There  has  been  the  cry, 
"  On  to  Richmond  !"  and  still  another  worse  cry,  "  On  to  England  !  ' 
Better  than  either  is  the  cry,  "On  to  Freedom  !"  Let  this  be  heard 
in  the  voices  of  our  soldiers,  ay,  let  it  resound  in  the  purposes  of  the 
government,  and  victory  must  be  near. 

With  no  little  happiness  I  make  known  that  this  cry  begins  at  last 
to  be  adopted.  It  is  in  the  instructions  from  the  Secretary  of  War, 
dated  War  Department,  October  I4th,  1861,  and  addressed  to  the 
general  commanding  the  forces  about  to  embark  for  South  Carolina. 
Here  are  the  important  words  : 

'You  will,  however,  in  general  avail  yourself  of  the  services  of  any 
persons,  whether  fugitives  from  labor  or  not,  who  may  offer  them  to 
the  national  government;  you  will  employ  such  persons  in  such  servi 
ces  as  they  may  be  fitted  for,  either  as  ordinary  employes,  or,  if  special 
circumstances  seem  to  require  it,  in  any  other  capacity,  with  such 
organization,  in  squads,  companies,  or  otherwise,  as  you  deem  most 
beneficial  to  the  service.  This,  however,  not  to  mean  a  general 
arming  of  them  for  military  service.  You  will  assure  all  loyal  masters 
that  Congress  will  provide  just  compensation  to  them  'for  the  loss  of 
the  services  of  the  persons  so  employed." 

This  is  not  the  positive  form  of  proclamation,  but  analyze  the  words, 
and  you  will  find  them  full  of  meaning.  First,  martial  law  is  declared, 
for  the  powers  committed  to  the  discretion  of  the  general  are  derived 
from  that  law  and  not  from  the  late  Confiscation  Act  of  Congress. 
Secondly,  fugitive  slaves  are  not  to  be  surrendered.  Thirdly  all 
coming  within  the  camp  are  to  be  treated  as  freemen.  Fourthly,  they 
may  be  employed  in  such  service  as  they  are  fitted  for.  Fifthly,  in 
squads,  companies,  or  otherwise,  with  the  single  slight  limitation  'that 
this  is  not  to  mean  "a  general  arming  of  them  for  military  service. I? 
And  sixthly,  compensation,  through  Congress,  is  promised  to  loyal 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  559 

masters — saying  nothing  of  rebel  masters.  All  this  falls  little  short  of 
a  proclamation  of  emancipation — not  unlike  that  of  old  Caius  Marius, 
when,  landing  on  the  coast  of  Etruria,  according  to  Plutarch,  he  pro 
claimed  liberty  to  the  slaves.  As  such,  I  do  not  err,  when  I  call  it, 
thus  far,  the  most  important  event  of  the  war — more  important  because 
understood  to  have  the  deliberate  sanction  of  the  President  as  well  as 
of  the  Secretary,  and  therefore  marking  the  policy  of  the  Administra 
tion.  That  this  policy  should  be  first  applied  to  South  Carolina  is 
just.  As  the  great  rebellion  began  in  this  state,  so  should  the  great 
remedy. 

Slavery  is  the  inveterate  culprit,  the  transcendent  criminal,  the  per 
severing  traitor,  the  wicked  parricide,  the  arch  rebel,  the  open  outlaw. 
As  the  less  is  contained  in  the  greater,  so  the  rebellion  is  all  contained 
in  slavery.  The  tenderness  which  you  show  to  slavery  is;  therefore, 
indulgence  to  the  rebellion  itself.  The  pious  caution  with  which  you 
avoid  harming  slavery  exceeds  that  ancient  superstition  which  made 
the  wolf  sacred  among  the  Romans  and  the  crocodile  sacred  among 
the  Egyptians;  nor  shall  I  hesitate  to  declare  that  every  surrender  of  a 
slave  back  to  bondage  is  an  offering  of  human  sacrifice,  whose  shame 
is  too  great  for  any  army  to  bear.  That  men  should  hesitate  to  strike 
at  slavery  is  only  another  illustration  of  human  weakness.  The 
English  republicans,  in  bloody  contest  with  the  Crown,  hesitated  for  a 
long  time  to  fire  upon  the  King;  but  under  the  valiant  lead  of  Crom 
well,  surrounded  by  his  well-trained  Ironsides,  they  banished  all  such 
scruple,  and  you  know  the  result.  The  King  was  not  shot,  but  his 
head  was  brought  to  the  block. 

The  duty  which  I  announce,  if  not  urgent  now,  as  a  military  neces 
sity,  in  just  self-defence,  will  present  itself  constantly,  as  our  armies 
advance  in  the  slave  states  or  land  on  their  coasts.  If  it  does  not  stare 
us  in  the  face  at  this  moment,  it  is  because  unhappily  we  are  still 
everywhere  on  the  defensive.  As  we  begin  to  be  successful,  it  must 
rise  before  us  for  practical  decision,  and  we  cannot  avoid  it.  There 
will  be  slaves  in  our  camps,  or  within  our  extended  lines,  whose  con- 
dlti  >n  we  must  determine.  There  will  be  slaves  also  claimed  by  rebels, 
whose  continued  chattelhood  we  should  scorn  to  recognize.  The  * 
decision  of  these  two  cases  will  settle  the  whole  great  question.  Nor* 
can  the  rebels  complain.  They  challenge  our  armies  to  enter  upon 
their  territory  in  the  free  exercise  of  all  the  powers  of  war — according 
to  which,  as  you  well  know,  all  private  interests  are  subordinated  to 
the  public  safety,  which,  for  the  time,  becomes  the  supreme  law  above 
all  other  laws  and  above  the  Constitution  itself.  If  everywhere  under 
the  flag  of  the  Union,  in  its  triumphant  march,  freedom  is  substituted 
for  slavery,  this  outrageous  rebellion  will  not  be  the  first  instance  in 
history  where  God  has  turned  the  wickedness  of  man  into  a  blessing; 
nor  will  the  example  of  Samson  stand  alone,  when  he  gathered  honey 
from  the  carcass  of  the  dead  and  rotten  lion. 


560  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

Pardon  me,  if  I  speak  in  hints  only,  and  do  not  stop  to  argue  or 
explain.  Not  now,  at  the  close  of  an  evening  devoted  to  the  rebellion 
in  its  origin  and  mainspring,  can  I  enter  upon  this  great  question  of 
military,  duty  in  its  details.  There  is  another  place  where  this  discus 
sion  will  be  open  for  n:e. 

It  is  enough  now,  if  I  indicate  the  simple  principle  which  is  the 
natural  gu  de  of  all  really  in  earnest,  of  all  whose  desire  to  save  their 
country  is  stronger  than  the  desire  to  save  slavery.  You  will  strike 
where  the  blow  is  most  felt;  nor  will  you  miss  the  precious  oppor 
tunity.  The  enemy  is  before  you,  nay,  he  comes  out  in  ostentatious 
challenge,  and  his  name  is  slavery.  You  can  vindicate  the  Union 
only  by  his  prostration.  Slavery  is  the  very  Goliath  of  the  rebellion, 
armed  with  coat  of  mail,  with  helmet  of  brass  upon  the  head,  greaves 
of  brass  upon  the  legs,  target  of  brass  between  the  shoulders,  and 
with  the  staff  of  his  spear  like  a  weaver's  beam.  But  a  stone  from  a 
simple  sling  will  make  the  giant  fall  upon  his  face  to  the  earth. 

Thank  God,  our  government  is  strong;  but  thus  far  all  signs  denote 
that  it  is  not  strong  enough  to  save  the  Union,  and  at  the  same  time 
save  slavery.  One  or  the  other  must  suffer;  and  just  in  proportion  as 
you  reach  forth  to  protect  slavery  do  you  protect  this  accursed  rebel 
lion,  nay,  you  give  to  it  that  ve"ry  aid  and  comfort  which  are  the  con 
stitutional  synonym  for  treason  itself.  Perversely  and  pitifully  do 
you  postpone  that  sure  period  of  reconciliation,  not  only  between  the 
two  sections,  not  only  between  the  men  of  the  North  and  the  men  of 
the  South,  but,  more  necessary  still,  between  slave  and  master,  with 
out  which  the  true  tranquillity  we  all  seek  cannot  be  permanently  as 
sured.  Believe  it,  only  through  such  reconciliation,  under  sanction  of 
freedom,  can  you  remove  all  occasion  of  conflict  hereafter;  only  in 
tlr's  way  can  you  cut  off  the  head  of  this  great  Hydra,  and  at  the  same 
time  extirpate  that  principle  of  evil,  which,  if  allowed  to  remain,  must 
shoot  forth  in  perpetual  discord,  if  not  in  other  rebellions;  only  in  this 
way  can  you  command  that  safe  victory,  without  which  this  contest  is 
vain,  which  will  have  among  its  conquests  indemnity  for  the  past  and 
security  for  the  future — the  noblest  indemnity  and  the  strongest  se 
curity  ever  won,  because  founded  in  the  redemption  of  the  race. 

Full  well  I  know  the  doubts,  cavils,  and  misrepresentations  to  which 
this  argument  for  the  integrity  of  the  nation  is  exposed;  but  I  turn 
with  confidence  to  the  people.  The  heart  of  the  people  is  right,  and 
all  great  thoughts  come  from  the  heart.  All  hating  slavery  and  true 
to  freedom  will  join  in  effort,  paying  with  person,  time,  talent,  purse. 
They  are  our  minute-men,  always  ready — and  yet  more  ready  just  in 
proportion  as  the  war  is  truly  inspired.  They,  at  least,  are  sure.  It 
remains  that  others  not  sharing  this  animosity,  merchants  who  study 
their  ledgers,  bankers  who  study  their  discounts,  and  politicians  who 
study  success,  should  see  that  only  by  prompt  and  united  effort  against 
slavery  can  the  war  be  brought  to  a  speedy  and  triumphant  close, 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  561 

without  which,  merchant,  banker,  and  politicians  all  suffer  alike. 
Ledger,  discount,  and  political  aspiration  will  have  small  value,  if  the 
war  continues  its  lava  flood,  shrivelling  and  stifling  everything  but  it 
self.  Therefore,  under  the  spur  of  self-interest,  if  not  under  the  ne 
cessities  of  self-defence,  we  must  act  together.  Humanity,  too,  joins 
in  this  appeal.  Blood  enough  has  been  shed,  victims  enough  have 
bled  at  the  altar,  even  if  you  are  willing  to  lavish  upon  slavery  the 
tribute  now  paying  of  more  than  a  million  dollars  a  day. 

Events,  too,  under  Providence,  are  our  masters.  For  the  rebels 
there  can  be  no  success.  For  them  every  road  leads  to  disaster.  For 
them  defeat  is  bad,  but  victory  worse;  for  then  will  the  North  be  in 
spired  to  sublimer  energy.  The  proposal  of  emancipation  which 
shook  ancient  Athens  followed  close  upon  the  disaster  at  Chseronea; 
and  the  statesman  who  moved  it  vindicated  himself  by  saying  that  it 
proceeded  not  from  him,  but  from  Cha^ronea.  The  triumph  of  Han 
nibal  at  Cannae  drove  the  Roman  republic  to  the  enlistment  and  en 
franchisement  of  eight  thousand  slaves.  Such  is  history,  which  wre 
are  now  repeating.  The  recent  act  of  Congress,  giving  freedom  to 
slaves  employed  against  us,  familiarly  known  as  the  confiscation  act, 
passed  the  Senate  on  the  morning  after  the  disaster  at  Manassas.  In 
the  providence  of  God  there  are  no  accidents;  and  this  seeming  re 
verse  helped  to  the  greatest  victory  which  can  be  won. 

Do  not  forget,  I  pray  you,  that  classical  story  of  the  mighty  hunter 
whose  life  in  the  book  of  fate  was  made  to  depend  upon  the  existence 
of  a  brand  burning  at  his  birth.  The  brand,  so  full  of  destiny,  was 
snatched  from  the  flames  and  carefully  preserved  by  his  prudent 
mother.  Meanwhile  the  hunter  became  powerful  and  invulnerable  to 
mortal  weapon.  But  at  length  the  mother,  indignant  at  his  cruelty  to 
her  own  family,  flung  the  brand  upon  the  flames  and  the  hunter  died. 
The  life  of  Meleager,  so  powerful  and  invulnerable  to  mortal  weapon, 
is  now  revived  in  this  rebellion,  and  slavery  is  the  fatal  brand.  Let 
the  national  government,  whose  maternal  care  is  still  continued  to 
slavery,  simply  throw  the  thing  upon  the  flames  madly  kindled  by  it 
self,  and  the  rebellion  will  die  at  once. 

Amidst  all  surrounding  perils  there  is  one  only  which  I  dread.  It  is 
the  peril  from  some  new  surrender  to  slavery,  some  fresh  recognition 
of  its  power,  some  present  dalliance  with  its  intolerable  pretensions. 
Worse  than  any  defeat,  or  even  the  flight  of  an  army,  would  be  this 
abandonment  of  principle.  From  all  such  peril,  good  Lord,  deliver 
us  !  And  there  is  one  way  of  safety,  clear  as  sunlight,  pleasant  as  the 
paths  of  peace.  Over  its  broad  and  open  gate  is  written  justice.  In 
that  little  word  is  victory.  Do  justice  and  you  will  be  twice  victors; 
for  so  will  you  subdue  the  rebel  master,  while  you  elevate  the  slave. 
Do  justice  frankly,  generously,  nobly,  and  you  will  find  strength  in- 
s'cad  of  weakness,  while  all  seeming  responsibility  disappears  in  obe 
dience  to  God's  eternal  law.  Do  justice,  though  the  heavens  fall. 


AMERICAN  PA  TRIOTISM. 


But  they  will  not  fall.     Every  act  of  justice  becomes  a  new  pillar  of 
the  Universe,  or  it  may  be  a  new  link  of  that 

**  Golden  everlasting  chain 
Whose  strong  embrace  holds  heaven  and  earth  and  main." 


THE  WAR  FOR  THE  UNION. 
WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 

Boston,  December,  1861. 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN: — It  would  be  impossible  for  me  fitly  to  thank 
you  for  this  welcome;  you  will  allow  me,  therefore,  not  to  attempt  it, 
but  to  avail  myself  of  your  patience  to  speak  to  you,  as  I  have  been 
invited  to  do,  upon  the  war. 

I  know,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  that  actions — deeds,  not  words — are 
the  fitting  duty  of  the  hour.  Yet,  still,  cannon  think  in  this  day  of 
ours,  and  it  is  only  by  putting  thought  behind  arms  that  we  render 
them  worthy,  in  any  degree,  of  the  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  cent 
ury.  Besides,  the  government  has  two-thirds  of  a  million  of  soldiers, 
and  it  has  ships  sufficient  for  its  purpose.  The  only  question  seems 
to  be,  what  the  government  is  to  do  with  these  forces — in  what  path, 
and  how  far  it  shall  tread.  You  and  I  come  here  to-night,  not  to 
criticise,  not  to  find  fault  with  the  Cabinet.  We  come  here  to  recog 
nize  the  fact,  that  in  moments  like  these  the  statesmanship  of  the 
Cabinet  is  but  a  pine  shingle  upon  the  rapids  of  Niagara,  borne  which 
way  the  great  popular  heart  and  the  national  purpose  direct.  It  is  in 
vain  now,  with  these  scenes  about  us,  in  this  crisis,  to  endeavor  to 
create  public  opinion;  too  late  now  to  educate  twenty  millions  of 
people.  Our  object  now  is  to  concentrate  and  to  manifest,  to  make 
evident  and  to  make  intense,  the  matured  purpose  of  the  nation.  We 
are  to  show  the  world,  if  it  be  indeed  so,  that  democratic  institutions 
are  strong  enough  for  such  an  hour  as  this.  Very  terrible  as  is  the 
conspiracy,  momentous  as  is  the  peril,  democracy  welcomes  the  strug 
gle,  confident  that  she  stands  like  no  delicately-poised  throne  in 
the  Old  World,  but,  like  the  pyramid,  on  its  broadest  base,  able  to  be 
patient  with  national  evils — generously  patient  with  the  long  forbear 
ance  of  three  generations — and  strong  enough  when,  after  that  they 
reveal  themselves  in  their  own  inevitable  and  hideous  proportions,  to 
pronounce  and  execute  the  unanimous  verdict — death  ! 

Now,  gentlemen,  it  is  in  such  a  spirit,  with  such  a  purpose,  that  I 
came  before  you  to-night  to  sustain  this  war.  Whence  came  this  war? 
You  and  I  need  not  curiously  investigate.  While  Mr.  Everett  on  one 
side,  and  Mr.  Sumner  on  the  other,  agree,  you  and  I  may  take  for 
granted  the  opinion  of  two  such  opposite  statesmen — the  result  of  the 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  563 

common  sense  of  this  side  of  the  water  and  the  other — that  slavery  is 
the  root  of  this  war.  I  know  some  men  have  loved  to  trace  it  to  dis 
appointed  ambition,  to  the  success  of  the  republican  party,  convincing 
three  hundred  thousand  nobles  at  the  South,  who  have  hitherto  fur 
nished  us  the  most  of  the  presidents,  generals,  judges,  and  ambassa 
dors  we  needed,  that  they  would  have  leave  to  stay  at  home,  and  that 
twenty  millions  of  northeners  would  take  their  share  in  public  affairs. 
I  do  not  think  that  cause  equal  to  the  result.  Other  men  before  Jef 
ferson  Davis  and  Governor  Wise  have  been  disappointed  of  the  presi 
dency.  Henry  Clay,  Daniel  Webster,  and  Stephen  A.  Douglas  were 
more  than  once  disappointed,  and  yet  who  believes  that  either  of  these 
great  men  could  have  armed  the  North  to  avenge  his  wrongs  ?  Why, 
then,  should  these  pigmies  of  the  South  be  able  to  do  what  the  giants 
I  have  named  could  never  achieve  ?  Simply  because  there  is  a  radical 
difference  between  the  two  sections,  and  that  difference  is  slavery.  A 
party  victory  may  have  been  the  occasion  of  this  outbreak.  So  a  tea- 
chest  was  the  occasion  of  the  revolution,  and  it  went  to  the  bottom  of 
Boston  harbor  on  the  night  of  the  i6th  of  December,  1773;  but  that 
tea-chest  was  not  the  cause  of  the  revolution,  neither  is  Jefferson 
Davis  the  cause  of  the  rebellion.  If  you  will  look  upon  the  map,  and 
notice  that  every  slave  state  has  joined  or  tried  to  join  the  rebellion, 
and  no  free  state  has  done  so,  I  think  you  will  not  doubt  substantially 
the  origin  of  this  convulsion. 

Now,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  you  know  me — those  of  you  who  know 
me  at  all — simply  as  an  abolitionist.  I  am  proud  and  glad  that  you 
should  have  known  me  as  such.  In  the  twenty-five  years  that  are  gone — 
I  say  it  with  no  wish  to  offend  any  man  before  me — but  in  the  quarter 
of  a  century  that  has  passed,  I  could  find  no  place  where  an  American 
could  stand  with  decent  self-respect,  except  in  constant,  uncontrolla 
ble,  and  loud  protest  against  the  sin  of  his  native  land.  But,  ladies 
and  gentlemen,  do  not  imagine  that  I  come  here  to-night  to  speak 
simply  and  exclusively  as  an  abolitionist.  My  interest  in  this  war, 
simply  and  exclusively  as  an  abolitionist,  is  about  as  much  gone  as 
yours  in  a  novel  where  the  hero  has  won  the  lady,  and  the  marriage 
has  been  comfortably  celebrated  in  the  last  chapter.  I  know  the  dan 
ger  of  a  political  prophecy — a  kaleidoscope  of  which  not  even  a 
Yankee  can  guess  the  next  combination — but  for  all  that,  I  venture  to 
offer  my  opinion,  that  on  this  continent  the  system  of  domestic  slavery 
has  received  its  death-blow.  Let  me  tell  you  why  I  think  so.  Leav 
ing  out  of  view  the  war  with  England,  which  I  do  not  expect,  there 
are  but  three  paths  out  of  this  war.  One  is,  the  North  conquers;  the 
other  is,  the  South  conquers;  the  third  is,  a  compromise.  Now,  if  the 
North  conquers,  or  there  be  a  compromise,  one  or  the  other  of  two 
things  must  come — either  the  old  Constitution  or  a  new  one.  I  believe 
that,  so  far  as  the  slavery  clauses  of  the  Constitution  of  '89  are  con 
cerned,  it  is  dead.  It  seems  to  me  impossible  that  the  thrifty  and  pains- 


564  A  M ERICA  .\ '  PA  TRIO  'I "ISM. 

taking  North,  after  keeping  six  hundred  thousand  men  idle  for  t\vo  or 
three  years,  at  a  cost  of  two  million  dollars  a  day;  after  that  flag  low 
ered  at  Sumter;  after  Baker,  and  Lyon,  and  Ellsworth,  and  Winthrop, 
and  Putnam,  and  Wesselhoef t  have  given  their  lives  to  quell  the  rebel 
lion;  after  our  Massachusetts  boys,  hurrying  through  ploughed  field 
and  workshop  to  save  the  capital,  have  been  foully  murdered  on  the 
pavements  of  Baltimore — I  cannot  believe  in  a  North  so  lost,  so 
craven  as  to  put  back  slavery  where  it  stood  on  the  4th  of  March 
last.  But  if  there  be  reconstruction  without  those  slave  clauses,  then 
in  a  little  while,  longer  or  shorter,  slavery  dies — indeed,  on  other 
basis  but  the  basis  of  '89,  she  has  nothing  else  to  do  but  to  die.  On  the 
contrary,  if  the  South — no,  I  cannot  say  conquers — my  lips  will  not 
form  the  word — but  if  she  balks  us  of  victory;  the  only  way  she  can  do 
it  is  to  write  Emancipation  on  her  banner,  and  thus  bribe  the  friends  of 
liberty  in  Europe  to  allow  its  aristocrats  and  traders  to  divide  the 
majestic  Republic  whose  growth  and  trade  they  fear  and  envy.  Either 
way,  the  slave  goes  free.  Unless  England  flings  her  fleets  along  the 
coast,  the  South  can  never  spring  into  separate  existence,  except  from 
the  basis  of  negro  freedom;  and  I  for  one  cannot  yet  believe  that  the 
North  will  consent  again  to  share  his  chains.  Exclusively  as  an 
abolitionist,  therefore,  I  have  little  more  interest  in  this  war  than  the 
frontiersman's  wife  had,  in  his  struggle  with  the -bear,  when  she  didn't 
care  which  whipped.  But  before  I  leave  the  abolitionists  let  me  say 
one  word.  Some  men  say  we  are  the  cause  of  this  war.  Gentlemen, 
you  do  us  too  much  honor !  If  it  be  so,  we  have  reason  to  be  proud 
of  it;  for  in  my  heart,  as  an  American,  I  believe  this  year  the  most 
glorious  of  the  Republic  since  '76.  The  North,  craven  and  contented 
until  now,  like  Mammon,  saw  nothing  even  in  heaven  but  the  golden 
pavement;  to-day  she  throws  off  her  chains.  We  have  a  North,  as 
Daniel  Webster  said.  This  is  no  epoch  for  nations  to  blush  at. 
England  might  blush  in  1620,  when  Englishmen  trembled  at  a  fool's 
frown,  and  were  silent  when  James  forbade  them  to  think;  but  not  in 
1649,  when  an  outraged  people  cut  off  his  son's  head.  Massachusetts 
might  have  blushed  a  year  or  two  ago,  when  an  insolent  Virgin 
ian,  standing  on  Bunker  Hill,  insulted  the  Commonwealth,  and  then 
dragged  her  citizens  to  Washington  to  tell  what  they  knew  about  John 
Drown;  but  she  has  no  reason  to  blush  to-day,  when  she  holds  that 
same^  impudent  Senator  an  acknowledged  felon  in  her  prison-fort.  In 
my  view,  the  bloodiest  war  ever  waged  is  infinitely  better  than  the 
happiest  slavery  which  ever  fattened  man  into  obedience.  And  yet  I 
love  peace.  But  it  is  real  peace;  not  peace  such  as  we  have  had,  not 
peace  that  meant  lynch-law  in  the  Carolinas  and  mob-'.aw  in  New 
York;  not  peace  that  meant  chains  around  Boston  court-house,  a  gag 
on  the  lips  of  statesmen,  and  the  slave  sobbing  himself  to  sleep  in 
curses.  No  more  such  peace  for  me;  no  peace  that  is  not  born  of 
justice,  and  does  not  recognize  the  rights  of  every  race  and  every  man. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  5^5 

Some  men  say  they  would  view  this  war  as  white  men.  I  con 
descend  to  no  such  narrowness.  I  view  it  as  an  American  citizen, 
proud  to  be  the  citizen  of  an  empire  that  knows  neither  black 
nor  white,  neither  Saxon  nor  Indian,  but  holds  an  equal  sceptre 
over  all.  If  I  am  to  love  my  country,  is  must  be  lovable; 
if  I  am  to  honor  it,  it  must  be  worthy  of  respect.  What  is 
the  function  God  gives  us — what  is  the  breadth  of  responsibility 
he  lays  upon  us?  An  empire,  the  home  of  every  race,  every  creed, 
every  tongue,  to  whose  citizens  is  committed,  if  not  the  only,  then  the 
grandest  system  of  pure  self-government.  Toqueville  tells  us  that  all 
nations  and  all  ages  tend  with  inevitable  certainty  to  this  result;  but 
he  points  out,  as  history  does,  this  land  as  the  normal  school  of  the 
nations,  set  by  God  to  try  the  experiment  of  popular  education  and 
popular  government,  to  remove  the  obstacles,  point  out  the  dangers, 
find  the  best  way,  encourage  the  timid  and  hasten  the  world's  pro 
gress.  Let  us  see  to  it,  that  with  such  a  crisis  and  such  a  past, 
neither  the  ignorance  nor 'the  heedlessness,  nor  the  cowardice  of 
Americans  forfeit  this  high  honor,  won  for  us  by  the  toils  of  two  gen 
erations,  given  to  us  by  the  blessings  of  Providence.  It  is  as  a  citizen 
of  the  leading  state  of  this  Western  continent,  vast  in  territory,  and 
yet  its  territory  nothing  when  compared  with  the  grandeur  of  its  past 
and  the  majesty  of  its  future, — it  is  as  such  a  citizen  that  I  wish,  for 
one,  to  find  out  my  duty,  express  as  an  individual  my  opinion,  and 
aid  thereby  the  Cabinet  in  doing  its  duty  under  such  responsibility. 
It  does  not  lie  in  one  man  to  ruin  us,  nor  in  one  man  to  save  us,  nor 
in  a  dozen.  It  lies  in  the  twenty  millions,  in  the  thirty  millions,  of 
thirty-four  states. 

Now  how  do  we  stand?  In  a  war, — not  only  that,  but  a  terrific 
war, — not  a  war  sprung  from  the  caprice  of  a  woman,  the  spite  of  a 
priest,  the  flickering  ambition  of  a  prince,  as  wars  usually  have  ;  but 
a  war  inevitable  ;  in  one  sense,  nobody's  fault ;  the  inevitable  result 
of  past  training,  the  conflict  of  ideas,  millions  of  people  grappling 
each  other's  throats,  every  soldier  in  each  camp  certain  that  he  is  fight 
ing  for  an  idea  which  holds  the  salvation  of  the  world, — every  drop  of 
his  blood  in  earnest.  Such  a  war  finds  no  parallel  nearer  than  that  of 
the  Catholic  and  the  Huguenot  of  France,  or  that  of  Aristocrat  and 
Republicans  in  1790,  or  of  Cromwell  and  the  Irish,  when  victory 
meant  extermination.  Such  is  our  war.  I  look  upon  it  as  the  com 
mencement  of  the  great  struggle  between  the  disguised  aristocracv 
and  the  democracy  of  America.  You  are  to  say  to-day  whether  it  shall 
last  ten  years  or  seventy,  as  it  usually  has  done.  It  resembles  closely 
that  struggle  between  aristocrat  and  democrat  which  began  in  France 
in  1789,  and  continues  still.  While  it  lasts,  it  will  have  the  same 
effect  on  the  nation  as  that  war  between  blind  loyalty,  represented  by 
the  Stuart  family,  and  the  free  spirit  of  the  English  Constitution, 
which  lasted  from  1660  to  1760,  and  kept  England  a  second-rate  power 
almost  all  that  century. 


566  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

Such  is  the  era  on  which  you  are  entering.  I  will  not  speak  of  war 
in  itself,— I  have  no  time  ;  I  will  not  say  with  Napoleon,  that  it  is  the 
practice  of  barbarians  ;  I  will  not  say  that  it  is  good.  It  is  better 
than  the  past.  A  thing  may  be  better,  and  yet  not  good.  This  war 
is  better  than  the  past,  but  there  is  not  an  element  of  good  in  it.  I 
mean,  there  is  nothing  in  it  which  we  might  not  have  gotten  better, 
fuller,  and  more  perfectly  in  other  ways.  And  yet  it  is  better  than 
the  craven  past,  infinitely  better  than  a  peace  which  had  pride  for 
its  father  and  subserviency  for  its  mother.  Neither  will  I  speak  of 
the  cost  of  war,  although  you  know  we  shall  never  get  out  of  this  one 
without  a  debt  of  at  least  two  or  three  thousand  millions  of  dollars. 
For  if  the  prevalent  theory  proves  correct,  and  the  country  comes 
together  again  on  anything  like  the  old  basis,  we  pay  Jeff  Davis's 
debts  as  well  as  our  own.  Neither  will  I  remind  you  that  debt  is  the 
fatal  disease  of  republics,  the  first  thing  and  the  mightiest  to  under 
mine  government  and  corrupt  the  people.  The  great  debt  of  England 
has  kept  her  back  in  civil  progress  at  least  a  hundred  years.  Neither 
will  I  remind  you  that,  when  we  go  out  of  this  war,  we  go  out  with 
an  immense  disbanded  army,  an  intense  military  spirit  embodied  in 
two  thirds  of  a  million  of  soldiers,  the  fruitful,  the  inevitable  source 
of  fresh  debts  and  new  wars.  I  pass  by  all  that  ;  yet  lying  within 
those  causes  are  things  enough  to  make  the  most  sanguine  friends  of 
free  institutions  tremble  for  our  future.  I  pass  those  by.  But  let  me 
remind  you  of  another  tendency  of  the  time.  You  know,  for  instance, 
that  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  by  which  government  is  bound  to 
render  a  reason  to  the  judiciary  before  it  lays  its  hands  upon  a  citizen, 
has  been  called  the  high-water  mark  of  English  liberty.  Jefferson  in 
his  calm  moments,  dreaded  the  power  to  suspend  it  in  any  emergency 
whatever,  and  wished  to  have  it  in  "eternal  and  unremitting  force." 
The  present  Napoleon,  in  his  treatise  on  the  English  Constitution, 
calls  it  the  gem  of  English  institutions.  Lieber  says  that  the  habeas 
corpus,  free  meetings  like  this,  and  a  free  press,  are  the  three  elements 
which  distinguish  liberty  from  despotism.  All  that  Saxon  blood  has 
gained  in  the  battles  and  toils  of  two  hundred  years  are  these  three 
things.  But  to-day,  Mr.  Chairman,  every  one  of  them — habeas  cor 
pus,  the  right  of  free  meeting,  and  a  free  press — is  annihilated  in  every 
square  mile  of  the  Republic.  We  live  to-day,  every  one  of  us,  under 
martial  law.  The  Secretary  of  State  puts  into  his  bastile,  with  a  war 
rant  as  irresponsible  as  that  of  Louis,  any  man  whom  he  pleases.  And 
you  know  that  neither  press  nor  lips  may  venture  to  arraign  the  gov 
ernment  without  being  silenced.  At  this  moment  one  thousand  men, 
at  least,  are  "  bastiled"  by  an  authority  as  despotic  as  that  of  Louis, 
— three  times  as  many  as  Eldon  and  George  III.  seized  when  they 
trembled  for  his  throne.  Mark  me,  I  am  not  complaining.  I  do  not 
say  it  is  not  necessary.  It  is  necessary  to  do  anything  to  save  the  ship 
It  is  necessary  to  throw  everything  overboard'  in  order  that  we  may 


WENDELL   PlIlLLirs.  567 

float.  It  is  a  mere  question  whether  you  prefer  the  despotism  of 
Washington  or  that  of  Richmond.  I  prefer  that  of  Washington.  But, 
nevertheless,  I  point  out  to  you  this  tendency,  because  it  is  momen 
tous  in  its  significance.  We  are  tending  with  rapid  strides,  you  say 
inevitably, — I  do  not  deny  it  ;  necessarily, — I  do  not  question  it  ;  we 
are  tending  toward  that  strong  government  which  frightened  Jeffer 
son  ;  towards  that  unlimited  debt,  that  endless  army.  We  have 
already  those  alien  and  sedition  laws  which,  in  1798,  wrecked 
the  Federal  party,  and  summoned  the  Democratic  into  existence.  For 
the  first  time  on  this  continent  we  have  passports,  which  even  Louis 
Napoleon  pronounces  useless  and  odious.  For  the  first  time  in  our 
history  government  spies  frequent  our  great  cities.  And  this  model  of 
a  strong  government,  if  you  reconstruct  on  the  old  basis,  is  to  be 
handed  into  the  keeping  of  whom  ?  If  you  compromise  it  by  recon 
struction,  to  whom  are  you  to  give  these  delicate  and  grave  powers? 
To  compromisers.  Reconstruct  this  government,  and  for  twenty 
years  you  can  never  elect  a  Republican.  Presidents  must  be  wholly 
without  character  or  principle,  that  two  angry  parties,  each  hopeless 
of  success,  contemptuously  tolerate  them  as  neutrals.  Now  I  am  not 
exaggerating  the  moment.  I  can  parallel  it  entirely.  It  is  the  same 
position  that  England  held  in  the  times  of  Eldon  and  Fox,  when  Hoi- 
croft  and  Montgomery,  the  poet  Home  Tooke  and  Frost  and  Hardy, 
went  into  dungeons,  under  laws  which  Pitt  executed  and  Burke 
praised, — times  when  Fox  said  he  despaired  of  English  liberty  but  for 
the  power  of  insurrection, — times  which  Sidney  Smith  said  he  remem 
bered,  when  no  man  was  entitled  to  an  opinion  who  had  not  ,£3,000 
a  year.  Why  !  there  is  no  right — do  I  exaggerate  when  I  say  there  is 
no  single  right? — which  government  is  scrupulous  and  finds  itself 
able  to  protect,  except  the  pretended  right  of  a  man  to  his  slaves  ! 
Every  other  right  has  fallen  now  before  the  necessities  of  the  hour. 

Understand  me,  I  do  not  complain  of  this  state  of  things;  but  it  is 
momentous.  I  only  ask  you,  that  out  of  this  peril  you  be  sure  to  get 
something  worthy  of  the  crisis  through  which  you  have  passed.  No 
government  of  free  make  could  stand  three  such  trials  as  this.  I  only 
paint  you  the  picture,  in  order,  like  Hotspur,  to  say:  "Out  of  this 
nettle,  danger,  be  you  right  eminently  sure  that  you  pluck  the  flower, 
safety."  Standing  in  such  a  crisis,  certainly  it  commands  us  that  we 
should  endeavor  to  find  the  root  of  the  difficulty,  and  that  now,  once 
for  all,  we  should  put  it  beyond  the  possibility  of  troubling  our  peace 
again.  We  cannot  afford  as  Republicans,  to  run  that  risk.  The 
vessel  of  state, — her  timbers  are  strained  beyond  almost  the  possi 
bility  of  surviving.  The  tempest  is  one  which  it  demands  the  war 
iest  pilot  to  outlive.  We  cannot  afford,  thus  warned,  to  omit  any 
thing  which  can  save  this  ship  of  state  from  a  second  danger  of  the 
kin.]. 

What,  shall  we  do  ?  The  answer  to  that  question  comes  partly  from 
A.  P.— 19. 


568  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM, 

what  we  think  has  been  the  cause  of  this  convulsion.  Some  men 
think — some  of  your  editors  think — many  of  ours,  too — that  this  war  is 
nothing  but  the  disappointment  of  one  or  two  thousand  angered  politic 
ians,  who  have  persuaded  eight  millions  of  Southerners,  against  their 
convictions,  to  take  up  arms  and  rush  to  the  battlefield; — no  great 
compliment  to  Southern  sense  !  They  think  that,  if  the  Federal  army 
could  only  appear  in  the  midst  of  this  demented  mass,  the  eight  mil 
lions  will  find  out  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives  that  they  have  got 
souls  of  their  own,  tell  us  so,  and  then  we  shall  all  be  piloted  back, 
float  back,  drift  back  into  the  good  old  times  of  Franklin  Pierce  and 
James  Buchanan.  There  is  a  measure  of  truth  in  that.  I  believe  that 
if,  a  year  ago,  when  the  thing  first  showed  itself,  Jefferson  Davis  and 
Toombs  and  Keitt  and  Wise,  and  the  rest,  had  been  hung  for  traitors  at 
Washington,  and  a  couple  of  frigates  anchored  at  Charleston,  another 
couple  in  Savannah,  and  a  half  dozen  in  New  Orleans,  with  orders  to  shell 
those  cities  on  the  first  note  of  resistance,  there  never  would  have 
been  this  outbreak,  or  it  would  have  been  postponed  at  least  a  dozen 
years;  and  if  that  interval  had  been  used  to  get  rid  of  slavery,  we 
never  should  have  heard  of  the  convulsion.  But  you  know  we  had 
nothing  of  the  kind,  and  the  consequence  is,  what  ?  Why,  the  amazed 
North  has  been  summoned  by  every  defeat  and  every  success,  from 
its  workshops  and  its  factories,  to  gaze  with  wide-opened  eyes  at  the 
lurid  heavens,  until  at  last,  divided,  bewildered,  confounded,  as  this 
twenty  millions  were,  we  have  all  of  us  fused  into  one  idea,  that  the 
Union  meant  justice,  shall  mean  justice — owns  down  to  the  Gulf,  and 
we  will  have  it.  WThat  has  taken  place  meanwhile  at  the  South  ?  Why, 
the  same  thing.  The  divided,  bewildered  South  has  been  summoned 
also  out  of  her  divisions  by  every  success  and  every  defeat  (and  she 
has  had  more  of  the  first  than  we  have),  and  the  consequence  is, 
that  she  too  is  fused  into  a  swelling  sea  of  state  pride,  hate  of  the 
North, — 

14  Unconquerable  will, 

And  sturdy  of  revenge,  immortal  hate, 

And  courage  never  to  submit  nor  yield." 

She  is  in  earnest,  ever}7  man,  and  she  is  unanimous  as  the  colonies  were 
in  the  Revolution.  In  fact  the  South  recognizes  more  intelligibly  than  we 
do  the  necessities  of  her  position.  I  do  not  consider  this  a  secession.  It  is 
no  secession.  I  agree  with  Bishop-General  Polk — it  is  a  conspiracy,  not 
a  secession.  There  is  no  wish,  no  intention  to  go  peaceably  and  per 
manently  off.  It  is  a  conspiracy  to  make  the  government  do  the  will 
and  accept  the  policy  of  the  slaveholders.  Its  root  is  at  the  South,  but 
it  has  many  a  branch  at  Wall  street  and  in  State  street.  It  is  a  conspiracy, 
and  on  the  one  side  is  every  man  who  still  thinks  that  he  that  steals 
his  brother  is  a  gentleman,  and  he  that  makes  his  living  is  not.  It  is 
the  aristocratic  element  which  survived  the  Constitution,  which  our 
fathers  thought  could  be  safely  left  under  it,  and  the  South  to-day  is 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  569 

forced  Into  this  war  by  the  natural  growth  of  the  antagonistic  principle. 
You  may  pledge  whatever  submission  and  patience  of  Southern  insti 
tutions  you  please,  it  is  not  enough.  South  Carolina  said  to  Massa 
chusetts  in  1835,  when  Edward  Everett  was  governor,  "  Abolish  free 
speech, — it  is  a  nuisance."  She  is  right, — from  her  standpoint  it 
is.  That  is,  it  is  not  possible  to  preserve  the  quiet  of  South  Carolina 
consistently  with  free  speech;  but  you  know  the  story  Sir  Walter  Scott 
told  of  the  Scotch  laird,  who  said  to  his  old  butler,  "  Jock,  you  and  I 
can't  live  under  this  roof."  "And  where  does  your  honor  think  of 
going?"  So  free  speech  says  of  South  Carolina  to-day.  Now  I  say 
you  may  pledge,  compromise,  guarantee  what  you  please.  The  South 
well  knows  that  it  is  not  your  purpose, — it  is  your  character  she 
dreads.  It  is  the  nature  of  Northern  institutions,  the  perilous  freedom 
of  discussion,  the  flavor  of  our  ideas,  the  sight  of  our  growth,  the  very 
neighborhood  of  such  states,  that  constitutes  the  danger.  It  is  like 
the  two  vases  launched  on  the  stormy  sea.  The  iron  said  to  the  crock 
ery,  "  I  wont  come  near  you."  "  Thank  you,"  said  the  weaker  vessel; 
"there  is  just  as  much  danger  in  my  coming  near  you."  This  the  South 
feels;  hence  her  determination;  hence,  indeed,  the  imperious  necessity 
that  she  should  rule  and  shape  our  government,  or  of  sailing  out  of  it. 
I  do  not  mean  that  she  plans  to  take  possession  of  the  North,  and 
choose  our  Northern  mayors;  though  she  has  done  that  in  Boston  for 
the  last  dozen  years,  and  here  till  this  fall.  But  she  conspires  and 
aims  to  control  just  so  much  of  our  policy,  trade,  offices,  presses,  pul 
pits,  cities,  as  is  sufficient  to  insure  the  undisturbed  existence  of  slavery. 
She  conspires  with  the  full  intent  so  to  mould  this  government  as  to 
keep  it  what  it  has  been  for  thirty  years,  according  to  John  Quincy 
Adams, — a  plot  for  the  extension  and  perpetuation  of  slavery.  As  the 
world  advances,  fresh  guarantees  are  demanded.  The  nineteenth  cen 
tury  requires  sterner  gags  than  the  eighteenth.  Often  as  the  peace  of 
Virginia  is  in  danger,  you  must  be  willing  that  a  Virginia  Mason  shall 
drag  your  citizens  to  Washington,  and  imprison  them  at  his  pleasure. 
So  long  as  Carolina  needs  it,  you  must  submit  that  your  ships  be 
searched  for  dangerous  passengers,  and  every  Northern  man  lynched. 
No  more  Kansas  rebellions.  It  is  a  conflict  between  the  two  powers, 
aristocracy  and  democracy,  which  shall  hold  this  belt  of  the  continent. 
You  may  live  here,  New  York  men,  but  it  must  be  in  submission  to 
such  rules  as  the  quiet  of  Carolina  requires.  That  is  the  meaning 
of  the  oft-repeated  threat  to  call  the  roll  of  one's  slaves  on  Bunker 
Hill,  and  dictate  peace  in  Faneuil  Hall.  Now,  in  that  fight,  I  go  for 
the  North, — for  the  Union. 

In  order  to  make  out  this  theory  of  "  irrepressible  conflict"  it  is  not 
necessary  to  suppose  that  every  Southerner  hates  every  Northerner 
(as the  Atlantic  Monthly  urges).  But  this  much  is  true:  some  three 
hundred  thousand  slaveholders  at  the  South,  holding  two  thousand 
millions  of  so-called  property  in  their  hands,  controlling  the  blacks, 


570  AM  ERIC  AX  PATRIOTISM. 

and  befooling  the  seven  millions  of  poor  whites  into  bein^  their  tools, 
— into  believing  that  their  interest  is  opposed  to  ouis, — this  order  of 
nobles,  this  privileged  class,  has  been  able  for  forty  years  to  keep  the 
government  in  dread,  dictate  terms  by  threatening  disunion,  bring  us 
to  its  verge  at  least  twice,  and  now  almost  break  the  Union  in  pieces. 
A.  power  thus  consolidated,  which  has  existed  seventy  years,  setting 
up  and  pulling  down  parties,  controlling  the  policy  of  I  he  government, 
and  changing  our  religion,  and  is  emboldened  by  uniform  success,  will 
not  burst  like  a  bubble  in  an  hour.  For  all  practical  purposes,  it  is 
safe  to  speak  of  it  as  the  South;  no  other  South  exists,  or  will  exist, 
till  our  policy  develops  it  into  being.  This  is  what  I  mean.  An  aris 
tocracy  rooted  in  wealth,  with  its  net-work  spread  over  all  social  life, 
its  poison  penetrating  every  fibre  of  society,  is  the  hardest  possible  evil 
to  destroy.  Its  one  influence,  fashion,  is  often  able  to  mock  at  relig 
ion,  trade,  literature,  and  politics  combined.  One  half  the  reason 
why  Washington  has  been  and  is  in  peril, — why  every  move  is  revealed 
and  checkmated, — is  that  your  President  is  unfashionable,  and  Mrs. 
Jefferson  Davis  is  not.  Unseen  chains  are  sometimes  stronger  than 
those  of  iron,  and  heavier  than  those  of  gold. 

It  is  not  in  the  plots,  it  is  in  the  inevitable  character  of  the  northern 
states,  that  the  South  sees  her  danger.  And  the  struggle  is  between 
tbesc  two  ideas.  Our  fathers,  as  I  said,  thought  they  could  safely  be 
left,  one  to  outgrow  the  other.  They  took  gunpowder  and  lighted  a 
match,  forced  them  into  a  stalwart  cannon,  screwed  down  the  muzzle, 
and  thought  they  could  secure  peace.  But  it  has  resulted  differently; 
their  cannon  has  exploded,  and  we  stand  among  fragments. 

Now  some  Republicans  and  some  Democrats — not  Butler  and  Bry 
ant  and  Cochrane  and  Cameron,  not  Boutwell  and  Bancroft  and  Dick 
inson,  and  others — but  the  old  set — the  old  set  say  to  the  Republicans, 
"  Lay  the  pieces  carefully  together  in  their  places  ;  put  the  gunpow 
der  and  the  match  in  again,  say  the  Constitution  backward  instead  of 
your  prayers,  and  there  will  never  be  another  rebellion  !"  I  doubt  it. 
It  seems  to  me  that  like  causes  will  produce  like  effects.  If  the  reason 
of  the  war  is  because  we  are  two  nations,  then  the  cure  must  be  to 
make  us  one  nation,  to  remove  that  cause  which  divides  us,  to  make 
our  institutions  homogeneous.  If  it  were  possible  to  subjugate  the 
South,  and  leave  slavery  just  as  it  is,  where  is  the  security  that  we 
should  not  have  another  war  in  ten  years  ?  Indeed,  such  a  course  in 
vites  another  war,  whenever  demagogues  please.  I  believe  the  policy 
of  reconstruction  is  impossible.  If  'it  were  possible,  it  would  be  the 
greatest  mistake  that  Northern  men  could  commit.  I  will  not  stop  to 
remind  you  that,  standing  as  we  do  to-day,  with  the  full  Constitu 
tional  right  to  abolish  slavery, — a  right  S'outhern  treason  has  just 
given  us, — a  right,  the  use  of  which  is  enjoined  by  the  sternest  neces 
sity, — if  after  that,  the  North  goes  back  to  the  Constitution  of  '89,  she 
assumes,  a  second  time,  afresh,  unnecessarily,  a  criminal  responsi- 


U'F.XDRLL   PHILLIPS.  571 

bility  for  slavery.  Hereafter  no  old  excuse  will  avail  Us.  A  second 
time,  with  open  eyes,  against  our  highest  interest,  we  clasp  bloody 
hands  with  tyrants  to  uphold  an  acknowledged  sin,  whose  fell  evil  we 
have  fully  proved. 

But  that  aside,  peace  with  an  unchanged  Constitution  would  leave 
us  to  stand  like  Mexico.  States  married,  not  matched;  chained  to 
gether,  not  melted  into  one;  foreign  nations  aware  of  our  hostility, 
and  interfering  to  embroil,  rob,  and  control  us.  We  should  be  what 
Greece  was  under  the  intrigues  of  Philip,  and  Germany  when  Louis 
XIV.  was  in  fact  her  dictator.  We  may  see  our  likeness  in  Austria, 
every  fretful  province  an  addition  of  weakness;  in  Italy,  twenty  years 
ago,  a  leash  of  angry  hounds.  A  Union  with  unwilling  and  subju 
gated  states,  smarting  with  defeat,  and  yet  holding  the  powerful  and 
dangerous  element  of  slavery  in  it,  and  an  army  disbanded  into  labor 
ers,  food  for  constant  disturbance,  would  be  a  standing  invitation  to 
France  and  England  to  insult  and  dictate,  to  thwart  our  policy,  de 
mand  changes  in  our  laws,  and  trample  on  us  continually. 

Reconstruction  is  but  another  name  for  the  submission  of  the  North. 
It  is  her  subjugation  under  a  mask.  It  is  nothing  but  the  confession 
of  defeat.  Every  merchant,  in  such  a  case,  puts  everything  he  has  at 
the  bidding  of  Wigfall  and  Toombs  in  every  cross-road  bar-room  at 
the  South.  For,  you  see,  never  till  now  did  anybody  but  a  few  Aboli 
tionists  believe  that  this  nation  could  be  marshalled,  one  section 
against  the  other  in  arms.  But  the  secret  is  out.  The  weak  point  is 
discovered.  Why  does  the  London  press  lecture  us  like  a  schoolmaster 
his  seven-year  old  boy  ?  Why  does  England  use  a  tone  such  as  she 
has  not  used  for  half  a  century  to  any  power?  Because  she  knows 
us  as  she  knows  Mexico,  as  all  Europe  knows  Austria, — that  we  have 
the  cancer  concealed  in  our  very  vitals.  Slavery,  left  where  it  is,  after 
having  created  such  a  war  as  this,  would  leave  our  commerce  and  all 
our  foreign  relations  at  the  mercy  of  any  Keitt,  Wigfall,  Wise  or 
Toombs.  Any  demagogue  has  only  to  stir  up  a  pro-slavery  crusade, 
point  back  to  the  safe  experiments  of  1861;  and  lash  the  passions  of 
the  aristocrat,  to  cover  the  sea  with  privateers,  put  in  jeopardy  the 
trade  of  twenty  states,  plunge  the  country  into  millions  of  debt,  send 
our  stock  down  fifty  per  cent,  and  cost  thousands  of  lives.  Recon 
struction  is  but  making  chronic  what  now  is  transient.  \Vhat  that 
is,  this  week  shows.  What  that  is,  we  learn  from  the  tone  England 
dares  to  assume  towards  this  divided  republic.  I  do  not  believe  re 
construction  possible.  I  do  not  believe  the  Cabinet  intend  it.  True, 
I  should  care  little  if  they  did,  since  I  believe  the  administration  can 
no  more  resist  the  progress  of  events,  than  a  spear  of  grass  can  retard 
the  step  of  an  avalanche.  But  if  they  do,  allow  me  to  say,  for  one, 
that  every  dollar  spent  in  this  war  is  worse  than  wasted,  that  every 
life  lost  is  a  public  murder,  and  that  every  statesman,  who  leads  states 
back  to  reconstruction  will  be  damned  to  an  infamy  compared  with 


572  A  HER  1C  AX  PATRIOTISM. 

which  Arnold  was  a.  saint  and  James  Buchanan  a  public  benefactor. 
I  said  reconstruction  is  not  possible.  I  do  not  believe  it  is,  for  this 
reason;  the  moment  these  states  begin  to  appear  victorious,  the  mo 
ment  our  armies  do  anything  that  evinces  final  succes,  the  wily  states 
manship  and  unconquerable  hate  of  the  South  will  write  "  Emancipa 
tion"  on  her  banner,  and  welcome  the  protectorate  of  a  European 
power.  And  if  you  read  the  European  papers  of  to-day,  you  need  not 
doubt  that  she  will  have  it.  Intelligent  men  agree  that  the  North  stands 
better  with  Palmerston  for  minister,  than  she  would  with  any  minister 
likely  to  succceed  him.  And  who  is  Palmerston  ?  While  he  was  "Foreign 
Secretary,  from  184810  1851,  the  British  press  ridiculed  every  effort  of  the 
French  Republicans, — sneered  at  Cavaignac  and  Ledru  Rollin,  Lamar- 
tine  and  Hugo, — while  they  cheered  Napoleon  on  to  his  usurpation;  and 
Lord  Normanby,  then  minister  at  Paris, early  in  December,  while  Napo 
leon's  hand  was  still  wet  with  the  best  blood  of  France,  congratulated 
the  despot  on  his  victory  over  the  Reds,  applying  to  the  friends  of  lib 
erty  the  worst  epithet  that  an  Englishman  knows.  This  last  outrage 
lost  Palmerston  his  place  ;  but  he  rules  to-day,  though  rebuked,  not 
changed. 

The  value  of  the  English  news  this  week  is  the  indication  of  the  nr- 
tion's  mind.  No  one  doubts  now,  that  should  the  South  emancipate, 
England  would  make  haste  to  recognize  and  help  her.  In  ordinary 
times,  the  government  and  aristocracy  of  England  dread  American 
example.  They  may  well  admire  and  envy  the  strength  of  our  gov 
ernment,  when,  instead  of  England's  impressment  and  pinched  levies, 
patriotism  marshals  six  hundred  thousand  volunteers  in  six  months. 
The  English  merchant  is  jealous  of  our  growth;  only  the  liberal  mid 
dle  classes  sympathize  with  us.  When  the  two  other  classes  are  di 
vided,  this  middle  class  rules.  But  now  Herod  and  Pilate  are  agreed. 
The  aristocrat,  who  usually  despises  a  trader,  whether  of  Manchester 
or  Liverpool,  as  the  South  does  a  negro,  now  is  secessionist  from  sym 
pathy,  as  the  trader  is  from  interest.  Such  a  union  no  middle  class 
can  checkmate.  The  only  danger  of  war  with  England  is,  that,  as 
soon  as  England  declared  war  with  us,  she  would  recognize  the  South 
ern  Confederacy  immediately,  just  as  she  stands,  slavery  and  all,  as  a 
military  measure.  As  such,  in  the  heat  of  passion,  in  the  smoke  of 
war,  the  English  people,  all  of  them,  would  allow  such  a  recognition 
even  of  a  slaveholding  empire.  War  with  England  insures  disunion. 
When  England  declares  war,  she  gives  slavery  a  fresh  lease  of  fifty 
years.  Even  if  we  had  no  war  with  England,  let  another  eight  or  ten 
months  be  as  little  successful  as  the  last,  and  Europe  will  acknowledge 
the  Southern  Confederacy,  slavery  and  all,  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Further,  any  approach  toward  victory  on  our  part,  without  freeing  the 
slave,  gives  him  free  to  Davis.  So  far,  the  South  is  sure  to  succeed, 
either  by  victory  or  defeat,  unless  we  anticipate  her.  Indeed,  the  only 
way,  the  only  sure  way,  to  break  this  Union,  is  to  try  to  save  it  by 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  573 

protecting  slavery.  "  Every  moment  lost,"  as  Napoleon  said,  "is  an 
opportunity  for  misfortune."  Unless  we  emancipate  the  slave,  we  shall 
never  conquer  the  South  without  her  trying  emancipation.  Every 
Southerner,  from  Toombs  up  to  Fremont,  has  acknowledged  it.  Do 
you  suppose  that  Davis  and  Beauregard,  and  the  rest,  mean  to  be  ex 
iles,  wandering  contemned  in  every  great  city  in  Europe,  in  order  that 
they  may  maintain  slavery  and  the  constitution  of  '89  ?  They,  like 
ourselves,  will  throw  everything  overboard  before  they  will  submit  to 
defeat, — defeat  from  Yankees.  1  do  not  believe,  therefore,  that  recon 
ciliation  is  possible,  nor  do  I  believe  the  Cabinet  have  any  such  hopes. 
Indeed,  I  do  not  know  where  you  will  find  the  evidence  of  any  pur 
pose  in  the  administration  at  Washington.  If  we  look  to  the  West,  if 
we  look  to  the  Potomac,  what  is  the  policy?  If,  on  the  Potomac,  with 
the  aid  of  twenty  governors,  you  assemble  an  army  and  do 
nothing  but  return  fugitive  slaves,  that  proves  you  competent  and  effi 
cient.  If,  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  unaided,  the  magic  of  your 
presence  summons  an  army  into  existence,  and  you  drive  your  enemy 
before  you  a  hundred  miles  farther  than  your  second  in  command 
thought  it  possible  for  you  to  advance,  that  proves  you  incompetent, 
and  entitles  your  second  in  command  to  succeed  you. 

Looking  in  another  diretion,  you  see  the  government  announcing 
a  policy  in  South  Carolina.  What  is  it  ?  Well,  Mr.  Secretary  Cam 
eron  says  to  the  general  in  command  there:  "  You  are  to  welcome 
into  your  camp  all  comers;  you  are  to  organize  them  into  squads  and 
companies;  use  them  any  way  you  please, — but  there  is  to  be  no 
general  arming."  That  is  a  very  significant  exception.  The  hint  is 
broad  enough  for  the  dullest  brain.  In  one  of  Charles  Reade's  novels, 
the  heroine  flies  away  to  hide  from  the  hero,  announcing  that  she  never 
shall  see  him  again.  Her  letter  says:  "  I  will  never  see  you  again, 
David.  You  of  course,  won't  come  to  see  me  at  my  old  nurse's  little  cot 
tage,  between  eleven  in  the  morning  and  four  in  the  afternoon,  because 
I  shan't  see  you. "  So  Mr.  Cameron  says  there  is  to  be  no  general  arm 
ing,  but  I  suppose  there  is  to  be  a  very  particular  arming.  But  he  goes 
on  to  add:  "This  is  no  greater  interference  with  the  institutions 
of  South  Carolina  than  is  necessary, — than  the  war  will  cure." 
Does  he  mean  he  will  give  the  slaves  back  after  the  war  is  over?  I 
don't  know.  All  I  know  is,  that  the  Port  Royal  expedition  proved 
one  thing — it  laid  forever  that  ghost  of  an  argument,  that  the  blacks 
loved  their  masters — it  settled  forever  the  question  whether  the  blacks 
were  with  us  or  with  the  South.  My  opinion  is  that  the  blacks  are  the 
key  of  our  position.  He  that  gets  them  wins,  and  he  that  loses  them 
goes  to  the  wall.  Port  Royal  settled  one  thing — the  blacks  are  with  us, 
and  not  with  the  South.  At  present  they  are  the  only  Unionists.  I  know 
nothing  more  touching  in  history,  nothing  that  art  will  immortalize 
and  poetry  dwell  upon  more  fondly — I  know  no  tribute  to  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  more  impressive  than  that  incident  of  the  blacks  coming  to 


574  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

the  water-side  with  their  little  bundles,  in  that  simple  faith  which  had 
endured  through  the  long  night  of  so  many  bitter  years.  They  pre 
ferred  to  be  shot  rather  than  driven  from  the  sight  of  that  banner  they 
had  so  long  prayed  to  see.  And  if  that  was  the  result  when  nothing 
but  General  Sherman's  equivocal  proclamation  was  landed  on  the  Car- 
olinas,  what  should  we  have  seen  if  there  had  been  eighteen  thousand 
veterans  with  Fremont,  the  statesman-soldier  of  this  war,  at  their  head, 
and  over  them  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  gorgeous  with  the  motto,  "  Free 
dom  for  all  !  freedom  forever  !"  If  that  had  gone  before  them,  in  my 
opinion  they  would  have  marched  across  the  Carolinas  and  joined 
Brownlow  in  East  Tennessee.  The  bulwark  on  each  side  of  them 
would  been  one  hundred  thousand  grateful  blacks;  they  would  have 
cut  this  rebellion  in  halves,  and  while  our  fleets  fired  salutes  across 
New  Orleans,  Beauregard  would  have  been  ground  to  powder  between 
the  upper  millstone  of  McClellan  and  the  lower  of  a  quarter-million  of 
blacks  rising  to  greet  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  McClellan  may  drill  a 
better  army — more  perfect  soldiers.  He  will  never  marshal  a  stronger 
force  than  those  grateful  thousands.  That  is  the  way  to  save  insur 
rection.  He  is  an  enemy  to  civil  liberty,  the  worst  enemy  to  his  own 
land,  who  asks  for  such  delay  or  perversion  of  government  policy  as 
is  sure  to  result  in  insurrection.  Our  duty  is  to  save  these  four  millions 
of  blacks  from  their  own  passions,  from  their  own  confusion,  and 
eight  millions  of  whites  from  the  consequences  of  it.  And  in  order 
to  do  it,  we  nineteen  millions  of  educated,  Christian  Americans  are  not 
to  wait  for  the  will  or  the  wisdom  of  a  single  man — we  are  not  to  wait 
for  Fremont  or  McClellan;  the  government  is  our  dictator.  It  might 
do  for  Rome,  a  herd  of  beggars  and  soldiers,  kept  quiet  only  by  the 
weight  of  despotism — it  might  do  for  Rome,  in  moments  of  danger, 

I  to  hurl  all  responsibility  into  the  hands  of  a  dictator.  But  for  us 
educated,  thoughtful  men,  with  institutions  modelled  and  matured 

1  by  the  experience  of  two  hundred  years — it  is  not  for  us  to  evade  the 
responsibility  by  deferring  to  a  single  man.  I  demand  of  the  govern 
ment  a  policy.  I  demand  of  the  government  to  show  the  doubting  in 
fidels  of  Europe  that  democracy  is  not  only  strong  enough  for  the 
trial,  but  that  she  breeds  men  with  brains  large  enough  to  comprehend 
the  hour,  and  wills  hot  enough  to  fuse  the  purpose  of  nineteen 
millions  of  people  into  one  decisive  blow  for  safety  and  for  union.  You 
will  ask  me  how  it  is  to  be  done.  I  would  have  it  done  by  Congress. 
We  have  the  power. 

When  Congess  declares  war,  says  John  Quincy  Adams,  Congress 
has  all  the  power  incident  to.  carrying  on  war.  It  is  not  an  unconsti 
tutional  power — it  is  a  power  conferred  by  the  Constitution;  but  the 
moment  it  comes  into  play  it  rises  beyond  the  limit  of  constitutional 
checks.  I  know  it  is  a  grave  power,  this  trusting  the  government 
with  despotism.  But  what  is  the  use  of  government,  except  just  to 
help  us  in  critical  times  ?  All  the  checks  and  ingenuity  of  our  institu- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  575 

tions  are  arranged  to  secure  for  us  men  wise  and  able  enough 
to  be  trusted  with  grave  powers — bold  enough  to  use  them  when  the 
times  require.  Lancets  and  knives  are  dangerous  instruments.  The 
use  of  the  surgeon  is,  that  when  lancets  are  needed,  somebody  may 
know  how  to  use  them,  and  save  life.  One  great  merit  of  democratic 
institutions  is,  that,  resting  as  they  must  on  educated  masses,  the  gov 
ernment  may  safely  be  trusted  in  a  great  emergency,  with  despotic 
power,  without  fear  of  harm  or  of  wrecking  the  state.  No  other  form  of 
government  can  venture  such  confidence  without  risk  of  national  ruin. 
Doubtless  the  war  power  is  a  very  grave  power;  so  are  some  ordinary 
peace  powers.  I  will  not  cite  extreme  cases — Louisiana  and  Texas. 
We  obtained  the  first  by  treaty,  the  second  by  joint  resolutions;  each 
case  an  exercise  of  power  as  grave  and  despotic  as  the  abolition  of 
slavery  would  be,  and,  unlike  that,  plainly  unconstitutional, — one 
which  nothing  but  stern  necessity  and  subsequent  acquiescence  by  the 
nation  could  make  valid.  Let  me  remind  you  that  seventy  years  prac 
tice  has  incorporated  it  as  a  principle  in  our  constitutional  law,  that 
what  the  necessity  of  the  hour  demands,  and  the  continued  assent  of 
the  people  ratifies,  is  law.  Slavery  has  established  that  rule.  We 
might  surely  use  it  in  the  cause  of  justice.  But  I  will  cite  an  unques 
tionable  precedent.  It  was  a  grave  power,  in  1807,  in  time  of  peace, 
when  Congress  abolished  commerce;  when,  by  the  embargo  of  Jeffer 
son,  no  ship  could  quit  New  York  or  Boston,  and  Congress  set  no 
limit  to  the  prohibition.  It  annihilated  commerce.  New  England 
asked,  "Is  it  constitutional  !"  The  Supreme  Court  said  "  Yes."  New 
England  sat  down  and  starved.  Her  wharfs  were  worthless,  her  ships 
rotted,  her  merchants  beggared.  She  asked  no  compensation.  The 
powers  of  Congress  carried  bankruptcy  from  New  Haven  to  Portland; 
but  the  Supreme  Court  said,  "  It  is  legal,"  and  New  England  bowed 
her  head.  We  commend  the  same  cup  to  the  Carolinas  to-day.  We 
say  to  them  that,  in  order  to  save  the  government,  there  resides  some 
where  despotism.  It  is  in  the  war  powers  of  Congress.  That  des 
potism  can  change  the  social  arrangement  of  the  Southern  States, 
and  has  a  right  to  do  it.  Every  man  of  you  who  speaks  of  emanci 
pation  of  the  negroes  allows  it  would  be  decisive  if  it  were  used. 
You  allow  that,  when  it  is  a  military  necessity,  we  may  use  it.  What  I 
claim  is,  in  honor  of  our  institutions,  that  we  are  not  put  to  wait  for  the 
wisdom  or  the  courage  of  a  general.  Our  fathers  left  us  with  no  such 
miserable  plan  of  government.  They  gave  us  a  government  with  the 
power,  in  such  times  as  these,  of  doing  something  that  would  save  the 
helm  of  the  state  in  the  hands  of  its  citizens.  We  could  cede  the  Car 
olinas;  I  have  sometimes  wished  we  could  shove  them  into  the  Atlan 
tic.  We  can  cede  a  state.  We  can  do  anything  for  the  time  being; 
and  no  theory  of  government  can  deny  its  power  to  make  the  most 
unlimited  change.  The  only  alternative  is  this:  Do  you  prefer  thv  des 
potism  of  your  own  citizens  or  of  foreigners  ?  That  is  the  only  cjues- 


576  A  MERICA  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

tion  in  war.  In  peace  no  man  may  be  deprived  of  his  life  but  "by 
the  judgment  of  his  peers,  or  the  law  of  the  land."  To  touch  life,  you 
must  have  a  grand  jury  to  present,  a  petit  jury  to  indict,  a  judge  to 
condemn,  and  a  sheriff  to  execute.  This  is  constitutional,  the  neces 
sary  and  invaluable  bulwark  of  liberty,  in  peace.  But  in  war  the  gov 
ernment  bids  Sigel  shoot  Lee,  and  the  German  is  at  once  grand  jury, 
petit  jury,  judge  and  executioner.  That,  too,  is  constitutional,  neces 
sary,  and  invaluable,  protecting  a  nation's  rights  and  life. 

Now  this  government,  which  abolishes  my  right  of  habeas  corpus, — 
which  strikes  down,  because  it  is  necessary,  every  Saxon  bulwark  of 
liberty, — which  proclaims  martial  law,  and  holds  every  dollar  and 
every  man  at  the  will  of  the  Cabinet, — do  you  turn  round  and  tell  me 
that  this  same  government  has  no  rightful  power  to  break  the  cobweb 
— it  is  but  a  cobweb — which  binds  a  slave  to  his  master, — to  stretch  its 
hands  across  the  Potomac,  and  root  up  the  evil  which,  for  seventy 
years,  has  troubled  its  peace,  and  now  culminates  in  rebellion?  I  main 
tain,  therefore,  the  power  of  the  government  itself  to  inaugurate  such 
a  policy;  and  I  say  in  order  to  save  the  Union,  do  justice  to  the  black. 

I  would  claim  of  Congress — in  the  exact  language  of  Adams,  of  the 
"  government" — a  solemn  act  abolishing  slavery  throughout  the  Union, 
securing  compensation  to  the  loyal  slave-holders.  As  the  Constitution 
forbids  the  States  to  make  and  allow  nobles,  I  would  now,  by  equal 
authority,  fordid  them  to  make  slaves  or  allow  slave-holders. 

This  has  been  the  usual  course  at  such  times.  Nations  convulsed 
and  broken  by  too  powerful  elements  or  institutions,  have  used  the 
first  moment  of  assured  power — the  first  moment  that  they  clearly  saw 
and  fully  appreciated  the  evil — to  cut  up  the  dangerous  tree  by  the 
roots.  So  France  expelled  the  Jesuits,  and  the  Middle  Ages  the  Tem 
plars.  So  England,  in  her  great  rebellion,  abolished  nobility  and  the 
established  church;  and  the  French  Revolution  did  the  same,  and  finally 
gave  to  each  child  an  equal  share  in  his  deceased  father's  lands.  For 
the  same  purpose,  England,  in  1745,  abolished  clanship  in  Scotland, 
the  root  of  the  Stuart  faction;  and  we,  in  '76,  abolished  nobles  and  all 
tenure  of  estate  savoring  of  privileged  classes.  Such  a  measure  sup 
plies  the  South  just  what  she  needs, — capital.  That  sum  which  the 
North  gives  the  loyal  slave-holder,  not  as  acknowledging  his  property 
in  the  slave,  but  as  measure  of  conciliation, — perhaps  an  acknowl 
edgment  of  its  share  of  the  guilt, — will  call  mills,  ships,  agriculture, 
into  being.  The  free  regro  will  redeem  to  use  lands  never  touched, 
whose  fertility  laughs  Illinois  to  scorn,  and  finds  no  rival  but  Egypt. 
And  remember,  besides,  as  Montesquieu  says,  "  The  yield  of  land  de 
pends  less  on  its  fertility  than  on  the  freedom  of  its  inhabitants."  Such 
a  measure  binds  the  negro  to  us  by  the  indissoluble  tie  of  gratitude; 
the  loyal  slave-holder,  by  strong  self-interest, — our  bonds  are  all  his 
property, — the  other  whites,  by  prosperity,  they  are  lifted  in  the  scale 
of  civilization  and  activity,  educated  and  enriched.  Our  institutions 


WE X DELL   PHILLIPS.  577 

are  then  homogeneous.  We  grapple  the  Union  together  with  hooks  of 
steel, — make  it  as  lasting  as  the  granite  which  underlies  the  con 
tinent. 

People  may  say  this  is  a  strange  language  for  me, — a  disunionist. 
Well,  I  was  a  disunionist,  sincerely,  for  twenty  years;  I  did  hate 
the  Union,  when  Union  meant  lies  in  the  pulpit  and  mobs  in  the 
street,  when  Union  meant  making  white  men  hypocrites  and  black 
men  slaves.  I  did  prefer  purity  to  peace, — I  acknowledge  it.  The 
child  of  six  generations  of  Puritans,  knowing  well  the  value  of  Union, 
I  did  prefer  disunion  to  being  the  accomplice  of  tyrants.  But  now, 
when  I  see  what  the  Union  must  mean  in  order  to  last,  when  I  see 
that  you  cannot  have  Union  without  meaning  justice,  and  when  I  see 
twenty  millions  of  people,  with  a  current  as  swift  and  as  inevitable  as 
Niagara,  determined  that  this  Union  shall  mean  justice,  why  should  I 
object  to  it  ?  I  endeavored  honestly,  and  am  not  ashamed  of  it,  to 
take  nineteen  states  out  of  this  Union,  and  consecrate  them  to  liberty, 
and  twenty  millions  of  people  answer  me  back,  "  We  like  your  motto, 
only  we  mean  to  keep  thirty-four  states  under  it."  Do  you  suppose  I 
am  not  Yankee  enough  to  buy  Union  when  I  can  have  it  a  fair  price?  I 
know  the  value  of  Union;  and  the  reason  \vhy  I  claim  that  Carolina  has 
no  right  to  secede  is  this:  we  are  not  a  partnership,  we  are  a  marriage, 
and  we  have  done  a  great  many  things  since  we  were  married  in  1789 
which  render  it  unjust  for  a  State  to  exercise  the  right  of  revolution 
on  any  ground  now  alleged.  I  admit  the  right.  I  acknowledge  the 
great  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  that  a  state  ex 
ists  for  the  liberty  and  happiness  of  the  people,  that  these  are  the  ends 
of  government,  and  that,  when  government  ceases  to  promote  those 
ends,  the  people  have  a  right  to  remodel  their  institutions.  I  acknow 
ledge  the  right  of  revolution  in  South  Carolina,  but  at  the  same  time 
I  acknowledge  that  right  of  revolution  only  when  government  has 
ceased  to  promote  those  ends.  Now  we  have  been  married  for  seventy 
years.  We  have  bought  Florida.  We  rounded  the  Union  to  the  Gulf. 
We  bought  the  Mississippi  for  commercial  purposes.  We  stole 
Texas  for  slave  purposes.  Great  commercial  interests,  great  interests 
of  peace,  have  been  subserved  by  rounding  the  Union  into  a  perfect 
shape;  and  the  money  and  sacrifices  of  two  generations  have  been 
given  for  this  purpose.  To  break  up  that  Union,  now,  is  to  defraud 
us  of  mutual  advantages  relating  to  peace,  trade,  national  security, 
which  cannot  survive  disunion.  The  right  of  revolution  is  not  matter 
of  caprice.  "  Governments  long  established,"  says  our  Declaration  of 
Independence,  "  are  not  to  be  changed  for  light  and  transient  causes." 
When  so  many  important  interests  and  benefits,  in  their  nature  indivi 
sible  and  which  disunion  destroys,  have  been  secured  by  common  toils 
and  cost,  the  South  must  vindicate  her  revolution  by  showing  that  our 
government  has  become  destructive  of  its  proper  ends,  else  the  right  of 
revolution  does  not  exist.  Why  did  we  steal  Texas  ?  Why  have  we 


578  AMERICA}.'  PATRIOTISM. 

helped  the  South  to  strengthen  herself?  Because  she  said  that  slavery 
within  the  girdle  of  the  Constitution  would  die  out  through  the  influ 
ence  of  natural  principles.  She  said:  "We  acknowledge  it  to  bean 
evil;  but  at  the  same  time  it  will  end  by  the  spread  of  free  principles 
and  the  influence  of  free  institutions."  And  the  North  said:  "Yes; 
we  will  give  you  privileges  on  that  account,  and  we  will  return  your 
slaves  for  you."  Every  slave  sent  back  from  a  Northern  State  is  a 
fresh  oath  of  the  South  that  she  would  not  secede.  Our  fathers  trusted 
to  the  promise  that  this  race  should  be  left  under  the  influence  of  the 
Union,  until,  in  the  maturity  of  time,  the  day  should  arrive  when  they 
would  be  lifted  into  the  sunlight  of  God's  equality.  I  claim  it  of  South 
Carolina.  By  virtue  of  that  pledge  she  took  Boston  and  put  a  rope 
round  her  neck  in  that  infamous  compromise  which  consigned  to  sla 
very  Anthony  Burns.  I  demand  the  fulfilment  on  her  part  even  of 
that  infamous  pledge.  Until  South  Carolina  allows  me  all  the  influence 
that  nineteen  millions  of  Yankee  lips,  asking  infinite  questions,  have 
upon  the  welfare  of  those  four  millions  of  bondsmen,  I  deny  her  right 
to  secede.  Seventy  years  has  the  Union  postponed  the  negro.  For 
seventy  years  has  he  been  beguiled  with  the  promise,  as  she  erected 
one  bulwark  after  another  around  slavery,  that  he  should  have  the 
influence  of  our  common  institutions.  I  claim  it  to-day.  Never,  with 
my  consent,  while  the  North  thinks  that  the  Union  can  or  shall  mean 
justice,  shall  those  four  hundred  thousand  South  Carolina  slaves  go 
beyond  the  influence  of  Boston  ideas.  That  is  my  strong  reason  for 
clinging  to  the  Union.  This  is  also  one  main  reason  why,  unless  upon 
most  imperative  and  manifest  grounds  of  need  and  right,  South  Caro 
lina  has  no  right  of  revolution;  none  till  she  fulfils  her  promise  in  this 
respect. 

I  know  how  we  stand  to-day,  with  the  frowning  cannon  of  the  Eng 
lish  fleet  ready  to  be  thrust  out  of  the  port-holes  against  us.  But  I 
can  answer  England  with  a  better  answer  than  William  H.  Seward 
can  write.  I  can  answer  her  with  a  more  statesmanlike  paper  than 
Simon  Cameron  can  indite.  I  would  answer  her  with  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  floating  over  Charleston  and  New  Orleans,  and  the  itinerant 
Cabinet  of  Richmond  packing  up  archives  and  wearing  apparel  to  ride 
back  to  Montgomery.  There  is  one  thing  and  only  one,  which  John 
Bull  respects,  and  that  is  success.  It  is  not  for  us  to  give  counsel  to 
the  government  on  points  of  diplomatic  propriety,  but  I  suppose  we 
may  express  our  opinions,  and  my  opinion  is,  that,  if  I  were  the  Presi 
dent  of  these  thirty-four  states,  while  I  was,  I  should  want  Mason  and 
Slidell  to  stay  with  me.  I  say,  then,  first,  as  a  matter  of  justice  to  the 
slave,  we  owe  it  to  him;  the  day  of  his  deliverance  has  come.  The 
long  promise  of  seventy  year's  is  to  be  fulfilled.  The  South 
draws  back  from  the  pledge.  The  North  is  bound,  in  honor  of  the 
memory  of  her  fathers,  to  demand  its  exact  fulfilment,  and  in  order  to 
save  this  Union,  which  now  means  justice  and  peace,  to  recognize 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  579 

the  rights  of  four  millions  of  its  victims.  This  is  the  dictate  of  justice 
— justice,  which  at  this  hour  is  craftier  than  Seward,  more  statesman 
like  than  Cameron;  justice,  which  appeals  from  the  cabinets  of  Europe 
to  the  people;  justice,  which  abases  the  proud  and  lifts  up  the  hum 
ble;  justice,  which  disarms  England,  saves  the  slaves  from  insurrec 
tion,  and  sends  home  the  Confederate  army  of  the  Potomac  to  guard 
its  own  hearths;  justice,  which  gives  us  four  millions  of  friends,  spies, 
soldiers  in  the  enemy's  country,  planted  each  one  at  their  very  hearth- 
sides;  justice,  which  inscribes  every  cannon  with  "Holiness  to  the 
Lord!"  and  puts  a  Northern  heart  behind  every  musket;  justice,  which 
means  victory  now  and  peace  forever.  To  all  cry  of  demagogues  ask 
ing  for  boldness,  I  respond  with  the  cry  of  "justice,  immediate,  abso 
lute  justice!"  And  if  I  dared  to  descend  to  a  lower  level,  I  should  say 
to  the  merchants  of  this  metropolis,  Demand  of  the  government  a 
speedy  settlement  of  this  question.  Every  hour  of  delay  is  big  with 
risk.  Remember,  as  Governor  Boutwell  suggests,  that  our  present 
financial  prosperity  comes  because  we  have  corn  to  export  in  place  of 
cotton;  and  that  another  year,  should  Europe  have  a  good  harvest  and 
we  an  ordinary  one,  while  an  inflated  currency  tempts  extravagance 
and  large  imports,  general  bankruptcy  stares  us  in  the  face.  Do  you 
love  the  Union?  Do  you  really  think  that  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Potomac  are  the  natural  brothers  and  customers  of  the  manufacturing- 
ingenuity  of  the  North?  I  tell  you,  certain  as  fate,  God  has  written 
the  safety  of  that  relation  in  the  same  scroll  with  justice  to  the  negro. 
The  hour  strikes.  You  may  win  him  to  your  side;  you  may  anticipate 
the  South;  you  may  save  twelve  millions  of  customers.  Delay  it,  let 
God  grant  McClellan  victory,  let  God  grant  the  Stars  and  Stripes  over 
New  Orleans,  and  it  is  too  late. 

Jeff  Davis  will  then  summon  that  same  element  to  his  side, 
and  twelve  millions  of  customers  are  added  to  Lancashire  and  Lyons, 
Then  commences  a  war  of  tariffs,  embittered  by  that  other  war  of 
angered  nationalities,  which  are  to  hand  this  and  the  other  Con 
federacy  down  for  twenty-five  or  thirty  years,  divided,  weakened;  and 
bloody  with  intestine  struggle.  And  what  will  be  our  character?  I 
do  not  wholly  agree  with  Edward  Everett,  in  that  very  able  and  elo 
quent  address  which  he  delivered  in  Boston,  in  which,  however,  he 
said  one  thing  pre-eminently  true — he,  the  compromiser — that  if,  in 
1830-31,  nullification,  under  Jackson,  had  been  hung  instead  of  com 
promised,  we  never  should  have  had  Jeff  Davis.  I  agree  with  him, 
and  hope  we  shall  make  no  second  mistake  of  the  kind.  Rut  I  do 
not  agree  with  him  in  the  conclusion  that  these  nineteen  states,  left 
alone,  would  be  of  necessity  a  second-rate  power.  No.  I  believe  in 
brains;  and  I  know  these  northern  men  have  more  brains  in  their 
right  hands  than  others  have  in  their  heads.  I  know  that  we  mix  our 
soil  with  brains,  and  that,  consequently,  we  are  bound  to  conquer. 
\Vhy,  the  waves  of  the  ocean  might  as  well  rebel  against  our  granite 


53o  AMLKICAX  rAT::iOTISM. 

coast,  or  the  wild  bulls  of  the  prairies  against  man,  as  either  England 
or  the  South  undertake  to  stop  the  march  of  the  nineteen  free  states  of 
this  continent. 

It  is  not  power  that  we  should  lose,  but  it  is  character.  How  should 
v;e  stand  when  Jeff  Davis  has  turned  that  corner  upon  us — abolished 
slavery,  won  European  sympathy,  and  established  his  Confederacy? 
Bankrupt  in  character — outwitted  in  statesmanship.  Our  record  would 
be,  as  we  entered  the  sisterhood  of  nations — "  Longed  and  straggled 
and  begged  to  be  admitted  into  the  partnership  of  tyrants,  and  they 
were  kicked  out !"  And  the  South  would  spring  into  the  same  arena, 
bearing  on  her  brow — "  She  flung  away  what  she  thought  gainful  and 
honest,  in  order  to  gain  her  independence  !"  A  record  better  than  the 
gold  of  California  or  all  the  brains  of  the  Yankee. 

Righteousness  is  preservation.  You  who  are  not  abolitionists  do 
not  come  to  this  question  as  I  did — from  an  interest  in  these  four 
millions  of  black  men.  I  came  on  this  platform  from  sympathy  with 
the  negro.  I  acknowledge  it.  You  come  to  this  question  from  an  idola 
trous  regard  for  the  Constitution  of  '89.  But  here  we  stand.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  ocean  is  England,  holding  out,  not  I  think  a  threat 
of  war — I  do  not  fear  it — but  holding  out  to  the  South  the  intimation 
of  a  willingness,  if  she  will  but  change  her  garments,  and  make  her 
self  decent,  to  take  her  in  charge,  and  give  her  assistance  and  protec 
tion.  There  stands  England,  the  most  selfish  and  treacherous  of 
modern  governments.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Potomac  stands  a 
statesmanship,  urged  by  personal  and  selfish  interests,  which  cannot 
be  matched,  and  between  them  they  have  but  one  object — it  is  in  the 
end  to  divide  the  Union. 

Hitherto  the  negro  has  been  a  hated  question.  The  Union  moved 
majestic  on  its  path,  and  shut  him  out,  eclipsing  him  from  the  sun  of 
equality  and  happiness.  He  has  changed  his  position  to-day.  He 
now  stands  between  us  and  the  sun  of  our  safet)T  and  prosperity,  and 
you  and  I  are  together  on  the  same  platform — the  same  plank — our 
object  to  save  the  institutions  which  our  fathers  planted.  Save  them 
in  the  service  of  justice,  in  the  service  of  peace,  in  the  service  of  lib 
erty;  and  in  that  service  demand  of  the  government  at  Washington 
that  they  shall  mature  and  announce  a  purpose.  That  flag  lowered  at 
Sumtcr,  that  flight  at  Bull  Run,  will  rankle  in  the  hearts  of  the  repub 
lic  for  centuries.  Nothing  will  ever  medicine  that  wound  but  the  gov 
ernment  announcing  to  the  world  that  it  knows  well  whence  came  its 
trouble,  and  is  determined  to  effect  its  cure,  and,  consecrating  the 
banner  to  liberty,  to  plant  it  on  the  shores  of  the  Gulf.  I  say  in  the 
service  of  the  negro;  but  I  do  not  forget  the  white  man,  the  eight 
millions  of  poor  whites,  thinking  themselves  our  enemies,  but  who 
are  really  our  friends.  Their  interests  are  identical  with  our  own. 
An  Alabama  slave-holder,  sitting  with  me  a  year  or  two  ago,  said: — 
"  In  our  northern  counties  they  are  your  friends.  A  man  owns  one 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  581 

slave  or  two  slaves,  and  he  eats  with  them,  and  sleeps  in  the  same 
room  (they  have  but  one),  much  as  a  hired  man  here  eats  with  the  far 
mer  he  serves.  There  is  no  difference.  They  are  too  poor  to  send 
their  sons  north  for  education.  They  have  no  newspapers,  and  they 
know  nothing  but  what  they  are  told  by  us.  If  you  could  get  at  them, 
they  would  be  on  your  side,  but  we  mean  you  never  shall." 

In  Paris  there  are  one  hundred  thousand  men  whom  caricature  or 
epigram  can  at  any  time  raise  to  barricade  the  streets.  Whose  fault  is 
it  that  such  men  exist?  The  government's;  and  the  government 
under  which  such  a  mass  of  ignorance  exists  deserves  to  be  barri 
caded.  The  government  under  which  eight  millions  of  people  exist, 
so  ignorant  that  two  thousand  politicians  and  a  hundred  thousand  aris 
tocrats  can  pervert  them  into  rebellion,  deserves  to  be  rebelled  against. 
In  the  service  of  thos ••*  men  I  mean,  for  one,  to  try  to  fulfil  the  pledge 
my  fathers  made  when. they  said,  "We  will  guarantee  to  every  state 
a  republican  form  of  government."  A  privileged  class,  grown  strong 
by  the  help  and  forbearance  of  the  North,  plots  the  establishment  of 
aristocratic  government  in  form  as  well  as  essence — conspires  to  rob 
the  non-slaveholders  of  their  civil  rights.  This  is  just  the  danger  our  na 
tional  pledge  was  meant  to  meet.  Our  fathers'  honor,  national  good 
faith,  the  cause  of  free  institutions,  the  peace  of  the  continent,  bid  us 
fulfil  this  pledge — insist  on  using  the  right  it  gives  us  to  preserve  the 
Union. 

I  mean  to  fulfil  the  pledge  that  free  institutions  shall  be  preserved 
in  the  several  states,  and  I  demand  it  of  the  government.  I  would 
have  them,  therefore,  announce  to  the  world  what  they  have  never 
yet  done.  I  do  not  wonder  at  the  want  of  sympathy  on  the  part  of 
England  with  us.  The  South  says,  "  I  am  fighting  for  slavery."  The 
North  says,  "  I  am  not  fighting  against  it."  Why  should  England  in 
terfere  ?  The  people  have  nothing  on  which  to  hang  their  sympathy. 

I  would  have  government  announce  to  the  world  that  we  understand 
the  evil  which  has  troubled  our  peace  for  seventy  years,  thwarting  the 
natural  tendency  of  our  institutions,  sending  ruin  along  our  wharves 
and  through  our  workshops  every  ten  years,  poisoning  the  national 
conscience.  We  well  know  its  character.  But  democracy,  unlike  other 
governments,  is  strong  enough  to  let  evils  work  out  their  own  death — 
strong  enough  to  face  them  when  they  reveal  their  proportions.  It 
was  in  this  sublime  consciousness  of  strength,  not  of  weakness,  that 
our  fathers  submitted  to  the  well-known  evil  of  slavery,  and  tolerated, 
until  the  viper  we  thought  we  could  safely  tread  on,  at  the  touch  of 
disappointment  starts  up  a  fiend  whose  stature  reaches  the  sky.  But 
our  cheeks  do  not  blanch.  Democracy  accepts  the  struggle.  After 
this  forbearance  of  three  generations,  confident  that  she  has  yet  power 
to  execute  her  will,  she  sends  her  proclamation  down  to  the  Gulf — 
Freedom  to  every  man  beneath  the  Stars,  and  death  to  every  institu 
tion  that  disturbs  our  peace  or  threatens  the  future  of  the  Republic. 


582  A  M 'F.RICA  N  PA  TRIG  TTSM. 

EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION. 
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

Washington^  Jan.   i,   1863. 

Whereas,  on  the  22d  day  of  September,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-two,  a  proclamation  was  issued  by 
the  President  of  the  L^nited  States,  containing,  among  other  things, 
the  following,  to  wit : — 

That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thou 
sand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within 
any  states  or  designated  part  of  a  state,  the  people  whereof  shall  then 
be 'in  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then,  thenceforward, 
and  forever  free;  and  the  Executive  Government  of  the  United  States, 
including  the  military  and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recognize  and 
maintain  the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  re 
press  such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts  they  may  make  for 
their  actual  freedom. 

That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January  aforesaid,  by 
proclamation,  designate  the  states  and  parts  of  states,  if  any,  in  which 
the  people  thereof  respectively  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the 
United  States;  and  the  fact  that  any  state,  or  the  people  thereof,  shall 
on  that  day  be  in  good  faith  represented  in  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  by  members  chosen  thereto  at  elections  wherein  a  majority  of 
the  qualified  voters  of  such  state  shall  have  participated,  shall,  in  the 
absence  of  strong  countervailing  testimony,  be  deemed  conclusive  evi 
dence  that  such  state,  and  the  people  thereof,  are  pot  then  in  rebellion 
against  the  United  States. 

Now,  therefore,  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States, 
by  virtue  of  the  power  in  me  vested  as  commander-in-chief  of  the 
army  and  navy  of  the  United  States  in  time  of  actual  arined  rebellion 
against  the  authority  and  government  of  the  United  States,  and  as  a  fit 
and  necessary  war  measure  for  suppressing  said  rebellion,  do,  on  this 
first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hun 
dred  and  sixty-three,  and  in  accordance  with  my  purpose  so  to  do, 
publicly  proclaimed  for  the  full  period  of  one  hundred  days  from  the 
day  first  above  mentioned,  order  and  designate,  as  the  states  and  parts 
of  states  wherein  the  people  thereof  respectively  are  this  day  in  rebel 
lion  against  the  United  States,  the  following,  to  wit : 

Arkansas,  Texas,  Louisiana  (except  the  parishes  of  St.  Bernard, 
Plaquemines,  Jefferson,  St.  John,  St.  Charles,  St.  James,  Ascension, 
Assumption,  Terre  Bonne,  Lafourche,  Ste.  Marie,  St.  Martin,  and  Or 
leans,  including  the  City  of  New  Orleans),  Mississippi,  Alabama, 


CHARLES   Sl'MXER.  583 

Florida,  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  North  Carolina,  and  Virginia  (except 
the  forty-eight  counties  designated  as  West  Virginia,  and  also  the 
counties  of  Berkeley,  Accomac,  Northampton,  Elizabeth  City,  York, 
Princess  Anne,  and  Norfolk,  including  the  cities  of  Norfolk  and  Ports 
mouth),  and  which  excepted  parts  are  for  the  present  left  precisely  as 
if  this  proclamation  were  not  issued. 

And  by  virtue  of  the  power  and  for  the  purpose  aforesaid,  I  do  order 
and  declare  that  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  said  designated  states 
and  parts  of  states  are,  and  henceforward  shall  be,  free;  and  that  the 
Executive  Government  of  the  United  States,  including  the  military  and 
naval  authorities  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the  freedom  of 
said  persons. 

And  I  hereby  enjoin  upon  the  people  so  declared  to  be  free  to  ab 
stain  from  all  violence,  unless  in  necessary  self-defence;  and  I  recom 
mend  to  them  that,  in  all  cases  when  allowed,  they  labor  faithfully  for 
reasonable  wages. 

And  I  further  declare  and  make  known  that  such  persons,  of  suita 
ble  condition,  will  be  received  into  the  armed  service  of  the  United 
States,  to  garrison  forts,  positions,  stations,  and  other  places,  and  to 
man  vessels  of  all  sorts  in  said  service. 

And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice,  war 
ranted  by  the  Constitution  upon  military  necessity,  I  invoke  the  con 
siderate  judgment  of  mankind,  and  the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty 
God. 

In  testimony  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  name,  and  caused  the 
seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 

Done  at  the  City  of  Washington,  this  first  day  of  January,   in  the 
year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three, 
[L.  s.]  and    of    the    independence    of    the  United    States   the   eighty- 
seventh. 

By  the  President  :  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

'WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 


EMANCIPATION   IMMEDIATE— NOT  GRADUAL. 
CHARLES  SUMNER. 

The  Senate,  February  12,  1863. 

MR.  PRESIDENT: — If  I  speak  tardily  in  this  debate,  I  hope  for  the  in 
dulgence  of  the  Senate.  Had  I  been  able  to  speak  earlier,  I  should 
have  spoken  ;  but,  though  present  in  the  Chamber,  and  voting  when  this 
bill  was  under  consideration  formerly,  I  was  at  the  time  too  much  of  an 
invalid  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  debate.  In  justice  to  myself  and  to 
the  great  question,  I  cannot  be  silent. 


584  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

I  have  already  voted  to  give  Missouri  twenty  million  dollars  to  secure 
freedom  at  once  for  her  slaves,  and  to  make  her  at  once  a  free  state.  I 
am  ready  to  vote  more,  if  more  be  needed  for  this  good  purpose  ;  but  I 
will  not  vote  money  to  be  sunk  and  lost  in  an  uncertain  scheme  of  pro 
spective  emancipation,  where  freedom  is  a  jack-o'-lantern,  and  the 
only  certainty  is  the  Congressional  appropriation.  For  money  paid 
down,  freedom  must  be  delivered. 

Notwithstanding  all  differences  of  opinion  on  this  important  question, 
there  is  much  occasion  for  congratulation  in  the  progress  made. 

Thank  God,  on  one  point  the  Senate  is  substantially  united.  A  large 
majority  will  vote  for  emancipation.  This  is  much,  both  as  a  sign 
of  the  present  and  a  prophecy  of  the  future.  A  large  majority,  in  the 
name  of  Congress,  will  offer  pecuniary  aid.  This  is  a  further  sign  and 
prophecy.  Such  a  vote,  and  such  an  appropriation,  will  constitute  an 
epoch.  Only  a  few  short  years  ago  the  very  mention  of  slavery  in  Con 
gress  was  forbidden,  and  all  discussion  of  it  was  stifled.  Now  eman 
cipation  is  an  accepted  watchword,  while  slavery  is  openly  denounced 
as  a  guilty  thing  worthy  of  death. 

It  is  admitted,  that  now,  under  the  exigency  of  war,  the  United  States 
ought  to  co-operate  with  any  state  in  the  abolition  of  slavery,  giving  it 
pecuniary  aid  ;  and  it  is  proposed  to  apply  this  principle  practically  in 
Missouri.  It  was  fit  that  emancipation,  destined  to  end  the  rebellion, 
should  begin  in  South  Carolina,  where  the  rebellion  began.  It  is  also 
fit  that  the  action  of  Congress  in  behalf  of  emancipation  should  begin 
in  Missouri,  which,  through  the  faint-hearted  remissness  of  Congress, 
as  late  as  1820,  was  opened  to  slavery.  Had  Congress  at  that  time 
firmly  insisted  that  Missouri  should  enter  the  Union  as  a  free  state,  the 
vast  appropriation  now  proposed  would  have  been  saved,  and,  better 
still,  this  vaster  civil  war  would  have  been  prevented.  The  whole 
country  is  now  paying  with  treasure  and  blood  for  that  fatal  surrender. 
Alas,  that  men  should  forget  that  God  is  bound  by  no  compromise,  and 
that,  sooner  or  later,  He  will  insist  that  justice  shall  be  done  !  There 
is  not  a  dollar  spent,  and  not  a  life  sacrificed,  in  this  calamitous 
war,  which  does  not  plead  against  any  repetition  of  that  wicked  folly. 
Palsied  be  the  tongue  that  speaks  of  compromise  with  slavery  ! 
Though,  happily,  compromise  is  no  longer  openly  mentioned,  yet  it  in 
sinuates  itself  in  this  debate.  In  former  times  it  took  the  shape  of 
barefaced  concession,  as  in  the  admission  of  Missouri  with  slavery,  in 
the  annexation  of  Texas  with  slavery,  the  waiver  of  the  'prohibition  of 
slavery  in  the  territories,  the  atrocious  bill  for  the  renslavement  of 
fugitives,  and  the  opening  of  Kansas  to  slavery,  first  by  the  Kansas 
Bill,  and  then  by  the  Lecompton  Constitution.  In  each  of  these  cases 
there  was  concession  to  slavery  which  history  records  with  shame,  and 
it  was  by  this  that  your  wicked  slaveholding  conspiracy  waxed  confident 
and  strong,  till  at  last  it  became  ripe  for  war. 

And  now  it  is  proposed,  as  an  agency  in  the  suppression,  Qf  the  Re- 


CHARLES   Sl'MXER.  585 

bellion,  to  make  an  end  of  slavery.  By  proclamation  of  the  President, 
all  slaves  in  certain  states  and  designated  parts  of  states  are  declared 
free.  Of  course  this  proclamation  is  a  war  measure,  rendered  just  and 
necessary  by  exigencies  of  war.  As  such,  it  is  summary  and  instant  in 
operation,  not  prospective  or  procrastinating.  A  proclamation  of  pro- 
ipective  emancipation  would  have  been  an  absurdity, — like  a  proclama- 
ion  of  a  prospective  battle,  where  not  a  blow  was  to  be  struck  or  a 
cannon  pointed  before  1876,  unless,  meanwhile,  the  enemy  desired  it. 
What  is  done  in  war  must  be  done  promptly,  except,  perhaps,  under 
the  policy  of  defence.  Gradualism  is  delay,  and  delay  is  the  betrayal  of 
victory.  If  you  would  be  triumphant,  strike  quickly,  let  your  blows  be 
felt  at  once,  without  notice  or  premonition,  and  especially  without  time 
for  resistance  or  debate.  Time  deserts  all  who  do  not  appreciate  its 
value.  Strike  promptly,  and  time  becomes  your  invaluable  ally  ;  strike 
slowly,  gradually,  prospectively,  and  time  goes  over  to  the  enemy. 

But  every  argument  for  the  instant  carrying  out  of  the  proclamation, 
every  consideration  in  favor  of  despatch  in  war,  is  especially  applicable 
to  whatever  is  done  by  Congress  as  a  war  measure.  In  a  period  of 
peace  Congress  might  fitly  consider  whether  emancipation  should  be  im 
mediate  or  prospective,  and  we  could  listen  with  patience  to  the  in 
stances  adduced  by  the  Senator  from  Wisconsin  (Mr.  Doolittle)  in 
favor  of  delay, — to  the  case  of  Pennsylvania,  and  to  the  case  of  New 
York,  where  slaves  were  tardily  admitted  to  their  birthright.  Such  ar 
guments,  though,  to  my  judgment  of  little  value  at  any  time,  might  then 
be  legitimate.  But  now,  when  we  are  considering  how  to  put  down  the 
rebellion,  they  are  not  even  legitimate.  There  is  but  one  way  to  put 
down  the  rebellion,  and  that  is  instant  action  ;  and  all  that  is  done, 
whether  in  the  field,  in  the  Cabinet,  or  in  Congress,  must  partake  of 
this  character.  Whatever  is  postponed  for  twenty  years,  or  ten  years, 
may  seem  abstractedly  politic  or  wise  ;  but  it  is  in  no  sense  a  war  meas 
ure  nor  can  it  contribute  essentially  to  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion. 

I  think  I  may  assume,  without  contradiction,  that  the  tender  of 
money  to  Missouri  for  the  sake  of  emancipation  is  a  war  measure,  to 
be  vindicated  as  such  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  It 
is  also  an  act  of  justice  to  an  oppressed  race.  But  it  is  not  in  this 
unquestionable  character  that  it  is  now  commended.  If  it  was  urged 
on  no  other  ground,  even  if  every  consideration  of  philanthropy  and 
of  religion  pleaded  for  it  with  rarest  eloquence,  I  fear  it  would  stand 
but  little  chance  in  either  house  of  Congress.  Let  us  not  disguise  the 
truth.  Except  as  a  war  measure  to  aid  in  putting  down  the  rebellion, 
this  proposition  could  expect  little  hospitality  here.  Senators  are 
ready  to  vote  money — as  the  British  Parliament  voted  subsidies — to 
supply  the  place  of  soldiers,  or  to  remove  a  stronghold  of  the  rebellion, 
all  of  which  is  done  by  emancipation.  I  do  not  overstate  the  case. 
Slavery  is  a  stronghold,  which  through  emancipation  will  be  removed, 
while  every  slave,  if  not  every  slave-master,  becomes  an  ally  of  the 


586  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

government.     Therefore,  emancipation  is  a  war  measure,  and  consti 
tutional  as  the  raising  of  armies  or  the  occupation  of  hostile  territory. 

In  vindicating  emancipation  as  a  war  measure,  we  must  see  that  it 
is  made  under  such  conditions  as  to  exercise  a  present,  instant  influ 
ence.  It  must  be  immediate,  not  prospective.  In  proposing  prospec 
tive  emancipation,  you  propose  a  measure  which  can  have  little  or  no 
influence  in  the  war.  Abstractly  senators  may  prefer  that  emancipa 
tion  shall  be  prospective  rather  than  immediate;  but  this  is  not  the 
time  for  the  exercise  of  any  abstract  reference.  Whatever  is  done  as 
a  war  measure  must  be  immediate,  or  it  will  cease  to  have  this  charac 
ter,  whatever  you  call  it. 

If  I  am  correct  in  this  statement — and  I  do  not  see  how  it  can  be 
questioned, — then  is  the  appropriation  for  immediate  emancipation 
just  and  proper  under  the  Constitution,  while  that  for  prospective 
emancipation  is  without  sanction,  except  what  it  finds  in  the  senti 
ments  of  justice  and  humanity. 

It  is  proposed  to  vote  ten  million  dollars  to  promote  emancipation 
ten  years  from  now.  Perhaps  I  am  sanguine,  but  I  cannot  doubt  that 
before  the  expiration  of  that  period  slavery  will  die  in  Missouri  under 
the  awakened  judgment  of  the  people,  even  without  the  sanction  of 
Congress.  If  our  resources  were  infinite,  we  might  tender  this  large 
sum  by  way  of  experiment;  but  with  a  treasury  drained  to  the  bot 
tom,  and  a  debt  accumulating  in  fabulous  proportions,  I  do  not  un 
derstand  how  we  can  vote  millions,  \vhich,  in  the  first  place,  will  be  of 
little  or  no  service  in  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  and,  in  the  sec 
ond  place,  will  be  simply  a  largess  in  no  way  essential  to  the  subver 
sion  of  slavery. 

Whatever  is  given  for  immediate  emancipation  is  given  for  the  na 
tional  defence,  and  for  the  safety  and  honor  of  the  republic.  It  will 
be  a  blow  at  the  rebellion.  Whatever  is  given  for  prospective  eman 
cipation  will  be  a  gratuity  to  slaveholders  and  a  tribute  to  slavery. 
Pardon  me,  if  I  repeat  what  I  have  already  said  on  this  question  : 
"  Millions  for  defence,  but  not  a  cent  for  tribute;"  millions  for  defence 
against  peril,  from  whatever  quarter  it  may  come,  but  not  a  cent  for 
tribute  in  any  quarter, — especially  not  a  cent  for  tribute  to  the  loath 
some  tyranny  of  slavery. 

I  know  it  is  sometimes  said  that  even  prospective  emancipation  will 
help  weaken  the  rebellion.  That  it  will  impair  the  confidence  in 
slavery,  and  also  its  value,  I  cannot  doubt.  But  it  is  equally  clear 
that  it  will  leave  slavery  still  alive  and  on  its  legs;  and  just  so  long  as 
this  is  the  case,  there  must  be  a  controversy  and  debate,  with  attend 
ing  weakness,  while  reaction  perpetually  lifts  its  crest.  Instead  of 
tranquillity,  which  we  all  seek  from  Missouri,  we  shall  have  conten 
tion.  Instead  of  peace,  we  shall  have  prolonged  war.  Every  year's 
delay,  ay,  sir,  every  week's  delay,  in  dealing  death  to  slavery  leaves 
just  so  much  of  opportunity  to  the  rebellion;  for  so  long  as  slavery  is 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  587 

allowed  to  exist  in  Missouri  the  rebellion  will  struggle,  not  without 
hope,  for  its  ancient  mastery.  But  let  slavery  cease  at  once  and  all 
\vill  be  changed.  There  will  be  no  room  for  controversy  or  debate 
with  attending  weakness;  nor  can  reaction  lift  its  crest.  There  will 
be  no  opportunity  to  the  rebellion,  which  must  cease  all  effort  there, 
when  Missouri  can  no  longer  be  a  slave  state.  Freedom  will  become 
our  watchful,  generous,  and  invincible  ally,  while  the  well-being,  the 
happiness,  the  repose,  and  the  renown  of  Missouri  will  be  established 
forever. 

Thus  far,  sir,  I  have  presented  the  argument  on  grounds  peculiar  to 
this  case;  and  here  I  might  stop.  Having  shown,  that  as  a  military 
necessity,  and  for  the  sake  of  that  economy  which  it  is  our  duty  to 
cultivate,  emancipation  must  be  immediate,  I  need  not  go  further. 
But  I  do  not  content  myself  here.  The  whole  question  is  opened  be 
tween  immediate  emancipation  and  prospective  emancipation, — or,  in 
other  words,  between  doing  right  at  once  and  doing  right  at  some 
future,  distant  day.  Procrastination  is  the  thief,  not  only  of  time, 
but  of  virtue  itself.  Yet  such  is  the  nature  of  man  that  he  is  disposed 
always  to  delay,  so  that  he  does  nothing  to-day  which  he  can  put  off 
till  to-morrow.  Perhaps  in  no  single  matter  is  the  disposition  more 
apparent  than  with  regard  to  slavery.  Every  consideration  of  hu 
manity,  religion,  reason,  common  sense,  and  history,  all  demanded 
the  instant  cessation  of  an  intolerable  wrong,  without  procrastination 
or  delay.  But  human  nature  would  not  yield,  and  we  have  been 
driven  to  argue  the  question,  whether  an  outrage,  asserting  property 
in  man,  denying  the  conjugal  relation,  annulling  the  parental  relation, 
shutting  out  human  improvement,  and  robbing  its  victim  of  all  the 
fruits  of  his  industry, — the  whole  to  compel  work  without  wages — 
should  be  stopped  instantly  or  gradually.  It  is  only  when  we  regard 
slavery  in  its  essential  elements,  and  look  at  its  unutterable  and  un 
questionable  atrocity,  that  we  fully  comprehend  the  mingled  folly  and 
wickedness  of  this  question.  If  it  were  merely  a  question  of  economy, 
or  a  question  of  policy,  then  the  Senate  might  properly  debate  whether 
the  change  should  be  instant  or  gradual;  but  considerations  of  econo 
my  and  policy  are  all  absorbed  in  the  higher  claims  of  justice  and  hu 
manity.  There  is  no  question  whether  justice  and  humanity  shall  be 
immediate  or  gradual.  Men  are  to  cease  at  once  from  wrong;  they 
are  to  obey  the  ten  commandments  instantly,  and  not  gradually. 

Senators  who  argue  for  prospective  emancipation  show  themselves 
insensible  to  the  true  character  of  slavery,  or  insensible  to  the  require 
ments  of  reason.  One  or  the  other  of  these  alternatives  must  be 
accepted. 

Shall  property  in  man  be  disowned  immediately,  or  only  prospec- 
tively  ?  Reason  answers — immediately. 

Shall  the  conjugal  relation  be  maintained  immediately,  or  only  pros- 
pectively?  Reason  recoils  from  the  wicked  absurdity  of  the  inquiry. 


588  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

Shall  the  parental  relation  be  recognized  immediately,  or  only  pros- 
pectively  ?  Reason  is  indignant  at  the  question. 

Shall  the  opportunities  of  knowledge,  including  the  right  to  read  the 
Book  of  Life,  be  opened  immediately  or  prospectively  ?  Reason  brands 
the  idea  of  delay  as  impious. 

Shall  the  fruits  of  his  own  industry  be  given  to  a  fellow-man  immedi 
ately  or  prospectively  ?  Reason  insists  that  every  man  shall  have  his 
own  without  postponement. 

And  history,  thank  God,  speaking  by  example,  testifies  in  conform 
ity  with  reason.  The  conclusion  is  irresistible.  If  you  would  con 
tribute  to  the  strength  and  honor  of  the  nation,  if  you  would  bless 
Missouri,  if  you  would  benefit  the  slave-master,  if  you  would  elevate 
the  slave,  and  still  further,  if  you  would  afford  an  example  which  shall 
fortify  and  consecrate  the  Republic,  making  it -at  once  citadel  and  tem 
ple,  do  not  put  off  the  day  of  freedom.  In  this  case,  more  than  in  any 
other,  he  gives  twice  who  quickly  gives. 


NATIONAL  CEMETERY  AT  GETTYSBURG. 
EDWARD  EVERETT. 

November  19,  1863. 

Standing  beneath  this  serene  sky,  overlooking  these  broad  fields  now 
reposing  from  the  labors  of  the  waning  year,  the  mighty  Alleghanies 
dimly  towering  before  us,  the  graves  of  our  brethren  beneath  our  feet, 
it  is  with  hesitation  that  I  raise  my  poor  voice  to  break  the  eloquent 
silence  of  God  and  Nature.  But  the  duty  to  which  you  have  called  me 
must  be  performed  ; — grant  me,  I  pray  you,  your  indulgence  and  your 
sympathy. 

It  was  appointed  by  law  in  Athens,  that  the  obsequies  of  the  citizens 
who  fell  in  battle  should  be  performed  at  the  public  expense,  and  in 
the  most  honorable  manner.  Their  bones  were  carefully  gathered  up 
from  the  funeral  pyre  where  their  bodies  were  consumed,  and  brought 
home  to  the  city.  There,  for  three  days  before  the  interment,  they  lay 
in  state,  beneath  tents  of  honor,  to  receive  the  votive  offerings  of 
friends  and  relatives, — flowers,  weapons,  precious  ornaments,  painted 
vases,  wonders  of  art,  which  after  two  thousand  years  adorn  the 
museums  of  modern  Europe, — the  last  tributes  of  surviving  affection. 
Ten  coffins  of  funeral  cypress  received  the  honorable  deposit,  one  for 
each  of  the  tribes  of  the  city,  and  an  eleventh  in  memory  of  the  un 
recognized,  but  not  therefore  unhonored,  dead,  and  of  those  whose 
remains  could  not  be  recovered.  On  the  fourth  day  the  mournful 
procession  was  formed  :  mothers,  wives,  sisters,  daughters,  led  the 
way,  and  to  them  it  was  permitted  by  the  simplicity  of  ancient  man- 


EDWARD   EVERETT. 

ners  to  utter  aloud  their  lamentations  for  the  beloved  and  the  lost;  the 
male  relatives  and  friends  of  the  deceased  followed  ;  citizens  and 
scrangers  closed  the  train.  Thus  marshalled,  they  moved  to  the  place 
of  interment  in  that  famous  Ceramicus,  the  most  beautiful  suburb  of 
Athens,  which  had  been  adorned  by  Cimon,  the  son  of  Miltiades,  with 
walks  and  fountains  and  columns, — whose  groves  were  filled  with 
altars,  shrines,  and  temples, — whose  gardens  were  kept  forever  green 
by  the  streams  from  the  neighboring  hills,  and  shaded  with  the  trees 
sacred  to  Minerva  and  coeval  with  the  foundation  of  the  city, — whose 
circuit  enclosed 

44  the  olive  grove  of  Academe, 

Plato's  retirement,  where  the  Attic  bird 

Trilled  his  thick-warbled  note  the  summer  long," — 

whose  pathways  gleamed  with  the  monuments  of  the  illustrious  dead, 
the  work  of  the  most  consummate  masters  that  ever  gave  life  to  marble. 
There,  beneath  the  overarching  plane-trees,  upon  a  lofty  stage  erected 
for  the  purpose,  it  was  ordained  that  a  funeral  oration  should  be  pro 
nounced  by  some  citizen  of  Athens,  in  the  presence  of  the  assembled 
multitude. 

Such  were  the  tokens  of  respect  required  to  be  paid  at  Athens  to  the 
memory  of  those  who  had  fallen  in  the  cause  of  their  country.  For 
those  alone  who  fell  at  Marathon  a  peculiar  honor  was  reserved.  As 
the  battle  fought  upon  that  immortal  field  was  distinguished  from  all 
others  in  Grecian  history  for  its  influence  over  the  fortunes  of  Hellas, 
— as  it  depended  upon  the  event  of  that  day  whether  Greece  should 
live,  a  glory  and  a  light  to  all  coming  time,  or  should  expire,  like  the 
meteor  of  a  moment;  so  the  honors  awarded  to  its  martyr-heroes  were 
such  as  were  bestowed  by  Athens  on  no  other  occasion.  They  alone 
of  all  her  sons  were  entombed  upon  the  spot  which  they  had  forever 
rendered  famous.  Their  names  were  inscribed  upon  ten  pillars  erected 
upon  the  monumental  tumulus  which  covered  their  ashes  (where,  after 
six  hundred  years,  they  were  read  by  the  traveller  Pausanias),  and 
although  the  columns,  beneath  the  hand  of  time  and  barbaric  violence, 
have  long  since  disappeared,  the  venerable  mound  still  marks  the  spot 
where  they  fought  and  fell, — 

44  That  battle-field  where  Persia's  victim-horde 
First  bowed  beneath  the  brunt  of  Hellas'  sword." 

And  shall  I,  fellow-citizens,  who,  after  an  interval  of  twenty-three 
centuries,  a  youthful  pilgrim  from  the  world  unknown  to  ancient 
Greece,  have  wandered  over  that  illustrious  plain,  ready  to  put  off  the 
shoes  from  off  my  feet,  as  one  that  stands  on  holy  ground — who  have 
gazed  with  respectful  emotion  on  the  mound  which  still  protects  the 
dust  of  those  who  rolled  back  the  tide  of  Persian  invasion,  and  res 
cued  the  land  of  popular  liberty,  of  letters,  and  of  arts,  from  the 
ruthless  foe — stand  unmoved  over  the  graves  of  our  dear  brethren, 


59°  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

who  so  lately,  on  three  of  those  all-important  days  which  decide  a  na 
tion's  history — days  on  whose  issue  it  depended  whether  this  august 
Republican  Union,  founded  by  some  of  the  wisest  statesmen  that  ever 
lived,  cemented  with  the  blood  of  some  of  the  purest  patriots  that 
ever  died,  should  perish  or  endure — rolled  back  the  tide  of  an  inva 
sion,  not  less  unprovoked,  not  less  ruthless,  than  that  which  came  to 
plant  the  dark  banner  of  Asiatic  despotism  and  slavery  on  the  free 
soil  of  Greece?  Heaven  forbid  !  And  could  I  prove  so  insensible  to 
every  prompting  of  patriotic  duty  and  affection,  not  only  would  you, 
fellow-citizens,  gathered  many  of  you  from  distant  states,  who  have  , 
come  to  take  part  in  these  pious  offices  of  gratitude — you  respected 
fathers,  brethren,  matrons,  sisters,  who  surround  me — cry  out  for 
shame,  but  the  forms  of  brave  and  patriotic  men  who  fill  these  hon 
ored  graves  would  heave  with  indignation  beneath  the  sod. 

We  have  assembled,  friends,  fellow-citizens,  at  the  invitation  of  the 
Executive  of  the  great  central  State  of  Pennsylvania,  seconded  by 
the  Governors  of  seventeen  other  loyal  states  of  the  Union,  to  pay 
the  last  tribute  of  respect  to  the  brave  men  who,  in  the  hard-fought 
battles  of  the  first,  second,  and  third  days  of  July  last,  laid  down 
their  lives  for  the  country  on  these  hillsides  and  the  plains  before  us, 
and  whose  remains  have  been  gathered  into  the  cemetery  which  we 
consecrate  this  day.  As  my  eye  ranges  over  the  fields  whose  sods 
were  so  lately  moistened  by  the  blood  of  gallant  and  loyal  men,  I  feel, 
as  never  before,  how  truly  it  was  said  of  old  that  it  is  sweet  and  be 
coming  to  die  for  one's  country.  I  feel,  as  never  before,  how  justly, 
from  the  dawn  of  history  to  the  present  time,  men  have  paid  the  hom 
age  of  their  gratitude  and  admiration  to  the  memory  of  those  who 
nobly  sacrificed  their  lives  that  their  fellow-men  may  live  in  safety  and 
in  honor.  And  if  this  tribute  were  ever  due,  to  whom  could  it  be 
more  justly  paid  than  to  those  whose  last  resting-place  we  this  day  , 
commend  to  the  blessing  of  Heaven  and  of  men  ? 

For  consider,  my  friends  what  would  have  been  the  consequences 
to  the  country,  to  yourselves,  and  to  all  you  hold  dear,  if  those  who 
sleep  beneath  our  feet,  and  their  gallant  comrades  who  survive  to 
serve  their  country  on  other  fields  of  danger,  had  failed  in  their  duty 
on  those  memorable  days.  Consider  what,  at  this  moment,  would  be 
the  condition  of  the  United  States,  if  that  noble  Army  of  the  Poto 
mac,  instead  of  gallantly  and  for  the  second  time  beating  back  the 
tide  of  invasion  from  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania,  had  been  itself 
driven  from  these  well-contested  heights,  thrown  back  in  confusion  on 
Baltimore,  or  trampled  down,  discomfited,  scattered  to  the  four 
winds.  What,  in  that  sad  event,  would  not  have  been  the  fate  of  the 
monumental  city  of  Harrisburg,  of  Philadelphia,  of  Washington,  the 
capital  of  the  Union,  each  and  every  one  of  which  would  have  lain  at 
the  mercy  of  the  enemy,  accordingly  as  it  might  have  pleased  him, 
spurred  by  passion,  flushed  with  victory,  and  confident  of  continued 
success,  to  direct  his  course  ? 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  591 

For  this  we  must  bear  in  mind — it  is  one  of  the  great  lessons  of  the 
war,  indeed  of  every  war,  that  it  is  impossible  for  a  people  without 
military  organization,  inhabiting  the  cities,  towns,  and  villages  of  an 
open  country,  including,  of  course,  the  natural  proportion  of  non- 
combatants  of  either  sex  and  of  every  age,  to  withstand  the  inroad 
of  a  veteran  army.  What  defence  can  be  made  by  the  inhabitants  of 
villages  mostly  built  of  wood,  of  cities  unprotected  by  walls,  nay,  by 
a  population  of  men,  however  high-toned  and  resolute,  whose  aged 
parents  demand  their  care,  whose  wives  and  children  are  clustering 
about  them,  against  the  charge  of  the  war-horse  \vhose  neck  is  clothed 
with  thunder — against  flying  artillery  and  batteries  of  rifled  cannon 
planted  on  every  commanding  eminence — against  the  onset  of  trained 
veterans  led  by  skilful  chiefs  ? 

No,  my  friends,  army  must  be  met  by  army,  battery  by  battery, 
squadron  by  squadron;  and  the  shock  of  organized  thousand's  must  be 
encountered  by  the  firm  breasts  and  valiant  arms  of  other  thousands, 
as  well  organized  and  as  skilfully  led.  It  is  no  reproach,  therefore,  to 
the  unarmed  population  of  the  country  to  say,  that  we  owe  it  to  the 
brave  men  who  sleep  in  their  beds  of  honor  before  us,  and  to  their 
gallant  surviving  associates  not  merely  that  your  fertile  fields,  my 
friends  of  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland,  were  redeemed  from  the 
presence  of  the  invader,  but  that  your  beautiful  capitals  were  not 
given  up  to  the  threatened  plunder,  perhaps  laid  in  ashes,  Wash 
ington,  seized  by  the  enemy,  and  a  blow  struck  at  the  heart  of  the 
nation. 

Who  that  hears  me  has  forgotten  the  thrill  of  joy  that  ran  through 
the  country  on  the  fourth  of  July — auspicious  day  for  the  glorious 
tidings,  and  rendered  still  more  so  by  the  simultaneous  fall  of  Vicks- 
burg — when  the  telegraph  flashed  through  the  land  the  assurance  from 
the  President  of  the  United  States  that  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
under  General  Meade,  had  again  smitten  the  invader?  Sure  I  am, 
that  with  the  ascriptions  of  praise  that  rose  to  Heaven  from  twenty 
millions  of  freemen,  with  the  acknowledgements  that  breathed  from 
patriotic  lips  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  America,  to  the 
surviving  officers  and  men  who  had  rendered  the  country  this  inesti 
mable  service,  there  beat  in  every  loyal  bosom  a  throb  of  tender  and 
sorrowful  gratitude  to  the  martyrs  who  had  fallen  on  the  sternly-con 
tested  field. 

Let  a  nation's  fervent  thanks  make  some  amends  for  the  toils 
and  sufferings  of  those  who  survive.  Would  that  the  heart-felt 
tribute  could  penetrate  these  honored  graves  ! 

In  order  that  we  may  comprehend,  to  their  full  extent,  our  obliga 
tions  to  the  martyrs  and  surviving  heroes  of  the  Army  of  the  Poto 
mac,  let  us  contemplate  for  a  few  moments  the  train  of  events  which 
culminated  in  the  battles  of  the  first  days  of  July.  Of  this  stupendous 
rebellion,  planned,  as  its  originators  boast,  more  than  thirty  years 
ago,  matured  and  prepared  for  during  an  entire  generation^  finally 


S92  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

commenced,  because,  for  the  first  time  since  the  adoption  of  the  Con 
stitution,  an  election  of  President  had  been  effected  without  the  votes 
of  the  South  (which  retained,  however,  the  control  of  the  two  other 
branches  of  the  government),  the  occupation  of  the  national  capital, 
with  the  seizure  of  the  public  archives  and  of  the  treaties  with  foreign 
powers,  was  an  essential  feature.  This  was,  in  substance,  within  my 
personal  knowledge,  admitted,  in  the  winter  of  1860-61,  by  one  of  the 
most  influential  leaders  of  the  rebellion  ;  and  it  was  fondly  thought 
that  this  object  could  be  effected  by  a  bold  and  sudden  movement  on 
the  4th  of  March,  1861.  There  is  abundant  proof,  also,  that  a  darker 
project  was  contemplated,  if  not  by  the  responsible  chiefs  of  the 
rebellion,  yet  by  nameless  ruffians,  willing  to  play  a  subsidiary  and 
murderous  part  in  the  treasonable  drama.  It  was  accordingly  main 
tained  by  the  rebel  emissaries  in  England,  in  the  c  rcles  to  v.  hich  they 
found  access,  that  the  new  American  Minister  ought  not,  when  he 
arrived,  to  be  received  as  the  envoy  of  the  Unit  d  States,  inasmuch  as 
before  that  time  Washington  would  be  captured,  and  the  capital  of  the 
nation  and  the  archives  and  muniments  of  the  government  would  be 
in  the  possession  of  the  Confederates.  In  full  accordance  also  with 
this  threat,  it  was  declared  by  the  Rebel  Secretary  of  War,  at  Mont 
gomery,  in  the  presence  of  his  chief  and  of  his  colleagues,  and  of  five 
thousand  hearers,  while  the  tidings  of  the  assault  on  Sumter  were 
travelling  over  the  wires  on  that  fatal  I2th  of  April,  1861,  that  before 
the  end  of  May  "the  flag  which  then  flaunted  the  breeze,"  as  he 
expressed  it,  "would  float  over  the  dome  of  the  Capitol  at  Washing 
ton." 

At  the  time  this  threat  was  made  the  rebellion  was  confined  to  the 
cotton-growing  states,  and  it  was  well  understood  by  them,  that  the 
only  hope  of  drawing  any  of  the  other  slaveholding  states  into  the 
conspiracy  was  in  bringing  about  a  conflict  of  arms,  and  "  firing  the 
heart  of  the  South"  by  the  effusion  of  blood.  This  was  declared  by 
the  Charleston  press  to  be  the  object  for  which  Sumter  was  to  be 
assaulted  ;  and  the  emissaries  sent  from  Richmond,  to  urge  on  the 
unhallowed  work,  gave  the  promise,  that,  with  the  first  drop  of  blood 
that  should  be  shed,  Virginia  would  place  herself  by  the  side  of  South 
Carolina. 

In  pursuance  of  this  original  plan  of  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion,  the 
capture  of  Washington  has  been  continually  had  in  view,  not  merely 
for  the  sake  of  its  public  buildings,  as  the  capital  of  the  Confederacy, 
but  as  the  necessary  preliminary  to  the  absorption  of  the  border  states, 
and  for  the  moral  effect  in  the  eyes  of  Europe  of  possessing  the 
metropolis  of  the  Union. 

I  allude  to  these  facts,  not  perhaps  enough  borne  in  mind,  as  a  suf 
ficient  refutation  of  the  pretence,  on  the  part  of  the  rebels,  that  the 
war  is  one  of  self-defence,  waged  for  the  right  of  self-government.  It 
is  in  reality  a  war  originally  levied  by  ambitious  men  in  the  cotton- 


EDWARD  ETERETT.  593 

growing  states,  for  the  purpose  of  drawing  the  slaveholding  border 
states  into  the  vortex  of  the  conspiracy,  first  by  sympathy,  — which  in 
the  case  of  Southeastern  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  part  of  Tennessee, 
and  Arkansas  succeeded, — and  then  by  force,  and  for  the  purpose  of 
subjugation,  Maryland,  Western  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Eastern  Tennes 
see,  Missouri ;  and  it  is  a  most  extraordinary  fact,  considering  the 
clamors  of  the  rebel  chiefs  on  the  subject  of  invasion,  that  not  a  soldier 
of  the  United  States  has  entered  the  states  last  named,  except  to 
defend  their  Union-loving  inhabitants  from  the  armies  and  guerillas 
of  the  rebels. 

In  conformity  with  these  designs  on  the  city  of  Washington,  and 
notwithstanding  the  disastrous  results  of  the  invasion  of  1862,  it  was 
determined  by  the  rebel  government  last  summer  to  resume  the  offen 
sive  in  that  direction.  Unable  to  force  the  passage  of  the  Rappa- 
hannock  where  General  Hooker,  notwithstanding  the  reverse  at 
Chancellorsville  in  May,  was  strongly  posted,  the  Confederate  Gene 
ral  resorted  to  strategy.  He  had  two  objects  in  view.  The  first  was, 
by  a  rapid  movement  northward,  and  by  manoeuvring  with  a  portion 
of  his  army  on  the  east  side  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  to  tempt  Hooker  from 
his  base  of  operations,  thus  leading  him  to  uncover  the  approaches  to 
Washi -igton,  to  throw  it  open  to  a  raid  by  Stuart's  cavalry,  and  to 
enable  Lee  himself  to  cross  the  Potomac  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Poolesville  and  thus  fall  upon  the  capital.  This  plan  of  operations 
was  wholly  frustrated.  The  design  of  the  rebel  general  was  promptly 
discovered  by  General  Hooker,  and,  moving  with  great  rapidity  from 
Fredricksburgh,  he  preserved  unbroken  the  inner  line,  and  stationed 
the  various  corps  of  his  army  at  all  the  points  protecting  the  approach 
to  Washington,  from  Centreville  up  to  Leesburg.  From  this  vantage 
ground  the  rebel  general  in  vain  attempted  to  draw  him.  In  the 
meantime,  by  the  vigorous  operation  of  Pleasonton's  cavalry,  the 
cavalry  of  Stuart,  though  greatly  superior  in  numbers,  was  so  crippled 
as  to  be  disabled  from  performing  the  part  assigned  it  in  the  campaign. 
In  this  manner  General  Lee's  first  object,  namely,  the  defeat  of 
Hooker's  army  on  the  south  of  ihe  Potomac,  and  a  direct  march  on 
Washington,  was  baffled. 

The  second  part  of  the  Confederate  plan,  which  is  supposed  to  have 
b?en  undertaken  in  opposition  to  the  views  of  General  Lee,  was  to 
turn  the  demonstration  northward  into  a  real  invasion  of  Maryland 
and  Pennsylvania,  in  the  hope  that,  in  this  wav,  General  Hooker 
would  be  drawn  to  a  distance  from  the  capital,  and  that  some  oppor 
tunity  would  occur  of  taking  him  at  a  disadvantage,  and,  after  defeat 
ing  his  army,  of  making  a  descent  upon  Baltimore  and  Washington. 
This  part  of  General  Lee's  plan,  which  was  substantially  the  repeti 
tion  of  that  of  1862,  was  not  less  signally  defeated,  with  what  honor  to 
the  arms  of  the  Union  the  heights  on  which  we  are  this  day  assembled 
will  forever  attest. 


594  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

Much  time  had  been  uselessly  consumed  by  the  Rebel  general  In 
his  unavailing  attempts  to  out-rnanceuvre  General  Hooker.  Although 
General  Lee  broke  up  from  Fredricksburg  on  the  3d  of  June,  it  was 
not  till  the  24th  that  the  main  body  of  his  army  entered  Maryland. 
Instead  of  crossing  the  Potomac,  as  he  had  intended,  east  of  the  Blue 
Ridge,  he  was  compelled  to  do  it  at  Sheppardstown  and  Williamsport, 
thus  materially  deranging  his  entire  plan  of  campaign  north  of  the 
river.  Stuart,  who  had  been  sent  with  his  cavalry  to  the  east  of  the 
Blue  Ridge,  to  guard  the  passes  of  the  mountains,  to  mask  the  move 
ments  of  Lee,  and  to  harass  the  Union  general  in  crossing  the  river, 
having  been  very  severely  handled  by  Pleasonton  at  Beverly  Ford, 
Aldie,  and  Upperville,  instead  of  being  able  to  retard  General  Hook 
er's  advance,  was  driven  himself  away  from  his  connection  with  the 
army  of  Lee,  and  cut  off  for  a  fortnight  from  all  communication  with 
it, — a  circumstance  to  which  General  Lee  in  his  report,  alludes  more 
than  once,  with  evident  displeasure.  Let  us  now  rapidly  glance  at 
the  incidents  of  the  eventful  campaign, 

A  detachment  from  Swell's  corps,  under  Jenkins,  had  penetrated 
on  the  1 5th  of  June,  as  far  as  Chambersburg.  This  movement  was 
intended  at  first  merely  as  a  demonstration,  and  as  a  marauding  ex 
pedition  for  supplies.  It  had,  however,  the  salutary  effect  of  alarm 
ing  the  country  ;  and  vigorous  preparations  were  made,  not  only  by 
the  General  Government,  but  here  in  Pennsylvania  and  in  the  sister 
states,  to  repel  the  inroad.  After  two  days  passed  at  Chambersburg, 
Jenkins,  anxious  for  his  communication  with  Ewell,  fell  back  with  his 
plunder  to  Hagerstown.  Here  he  remained  for  several  days,  and 
then,  having  swept  the  recesses  of  the  Cumberland  valley,  came 
down  upon  the  eastern  flank  of  the  South  Mountain,  and  pushed  his 
marauding  parties  as  far  as  Waynesboro.  On  the  22d  the  remainder 
of  Ewell's  corps  crossed  the  river  and  moved  up  the  valley.  They 
were  followed  on  the  24th  by  Longstreeet  and  Hill,  who  crossed  at 
Williamsport  and  Sheppardstown,  and  pushing  up  the  valley,  en 
camped  at  Chambersburg  on  the  27th.  In  this  way  the  whole  Rebel 
army,  estimated  at  90,000  infantry,  upwards  of  10,000  cavalry,  and 
4.000  or  5,000  artillery,  making  a  total  of  105,000  of  all  arms,  was 
concentrated  in  Pennsylvania. 

Up  to  this  time  no  report  of  Hooker's  movements  had  been  received 
by  General  Lee,  who,  having  been  deprived  of  his  cavalry,  had  no 
means  of  obtaining  information.  Rightly  judging,  however,  that  no 
time  would  be  lost  by  the  Un'on  rrmy  in  the  pursuit,  'n  o-der  to  detain 
it  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  mountains  in  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania, 
and  thus  preserve  his  communications  by  the  way  of  Williamsport, 
he  had,  before  his  own  arrival  at  Chambersburg,  directedEwell  to  send 
detachments  from  his  corps  to  Carlisle  and  York.  The  latter  detach 
ment,  under  Early,  passed  through  this  place  on  the  26th  of  June. 
You  need  not,  fellow-citizens  of  Gettysburg,  that  I  should  recall  to 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  595 

you  those  moments  of  alarm  and  distress,  precursors  as  they  were  of 
the  more  trying  scenes  which  were  so  soon  to  follow. 

As  soon  as  General  Hooker  perceived  that  the  advance  of  the  Con 
federates  into  the  Cumberland  valley  was  not  a  mere  feint  to  draw 
him  away  from  Washington,  he  moved  rapidly  in  pursuit.  Attempts, 
as  we  have  seen,  were  made  to  harass  and  retard  his  passage  across 
the  Potomac.  These  attempts  were  not  only  altogether  unsuccessful, 
but  were  so  unskilfully  made  as  to  place  the  entire  Federal  army  be 
tween  the  cavalry  of  Stuart  and  the  army  of  Lee.  While  the  latter 
was  massed  in  the  Cumberland  valley,  Stuart  was  east  of  the  mount 
ains,  with  Hooker's  army  between,  and  Gregg's  cavalry  in  close  pur- 
suit.  Stuart  was  accordingly  compelled  to  force  a  march  northward, 
which  was  destitute  of  strategical  character,  and  which  deprived  his 
chief  of  all  means  of  obtaining  intelligence. 

Not  a  moment  had  been  lost  by  General  Hooker  in  the  pursuit  of 
Lee.  The  day  after  the  Rebel  army  entered  Maryland  the  Union 
army  crossed  the  Potomac  at  Edward's  Ferry,  and  by  the  28th  of  June 
lay  between  Harper's  Ferry  and  Frederick.  The  force  of  the  enemy 
on  that  day  was  partly  at  Chambersburg,  and  partly  moving  on  the 
Cashtown  road  in  the  direction  of  Gettysburg,  while  the  detachments 
from  Swell's  corps,  of  which  mention  has  been  made,  had  reached  the 
Susquehanna  opposite  Harrisburg  and  Columbia.  That  a  great  battle 
must  soon  be  fought  no  one  could  doubt;  but,  in  the  apparent  and 
perhaps  real  absence  of  plan  on  the  part  of  Lee,  it  was  impossible  to 
foretell  the  precise  scene  of  the  encounter.  Wherever  fought,  conse 
quences  the  most  momentous  hung  upon  the  result. 

In  this  critical  and  anxious  state  of  affairs  General  Hooker  was  re 
lieved,  and  General  Meade  was  summoned  to  the  chief  command  of 
the  army.  It  appears  to  my  unmilitary  judgment  to  reflect  the  high 
est  credit  upon  him,  upon  his  predecessor,  and  upon  the  corps  com 
manders  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  that  a  change  could  take  place 
in  the  chief  command  of  so  large  a  force  on  the  eve  of  a  general  battle, 
— the  various  corps  necessarily  moving  on  lines  somewhat  divergent, 
and  all  in  ignorance  of  the  enemy's  intended  point  of  concentration, — 
and  that  not  an  hour's  hesitation  should  ensue  in  the  advance  of  any 
portion  of  the  entire  army. 

Having  assumed  the  chief  command  on  the  28th,  General  Meade 
directed  his  left  wing,  under  Reynolds,  upon  Emmettsburg  and  his 
right  upon  New  Windsor,  leaving  General  French  with  11,000  men 
to  protect  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  and  convoy  the  public 
property  from  Harper's  Ferry  to  Washington.  Euford's  cavalry  was 
then  at  this  place,  and  Kilpatrick's  at  Hanover,  where  he  encountered 
and  defeated  the  rear  of  Stuart's  cavalry,  who  was  roving  the  country 
in  search  of  the  main  army  of  Lee.  On  the  Rebel  side,  Hill  had 
reached  Fayetteville  on  the  Cashtown  road  on  the  28th,  and  was  fol 
lowed  on  the  same  road  by  Longstr^et  on  the  29th.  The  eastern  side 


596  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

of  the  mountain,  as  seen  from  Gettysburg,  was  lighted  up  at  night  by 
the  camp-fires  of  the  enemy's  advance,  and  the  country  swarmed  With 
his  foraging  parties.  It  was  now  too  evident  to  be  questioned,  that 
the  thunder-cloud,  so  long  gathering  in  blackness,  would  soon  burst 
on  some  part  of  the  devoted  vicinity  of  Gettysburg. 

The  3Oth  of  June  was  a  day  of  important  preparation.  At  half-past 
eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning  General  Buford  passed  through  Gettys 
burg  upon  a  reconnoisance  in  force,  with  his  cavalry,  upon  the  Cham- 
bersburg  road.  The  information  obtained  by  him  was  immediately 
communicated  to  General  Reynolds,  who  was,  in  consequence,  di 
rected  to  occupy  Gettysburg.  That  gallant  officer  accordingly,  with 
the  first  corps,  marched  from  Emmettsburg  to  within  six  or  seven 
miles  of  this  place,  and  encamped  on  the  right  bank  of  Marsh's  Creek. 
Our  right  wing,  meantime,  was  moved  to  Manchester.  On  the  same 
day  the  corps  of  Hill  and  Longstreet  were  pushed  still  farther  forward 
on  the  Chambersburg  road,  and  distributed  in  the  vicinity  of  Marsh's 
Creek,  while  a  reconnoissance  was  made  by  the  Confederate  General 
Petigru  up  to  a  very  short  distance  from  this  place.  Thus  at  nightfall 
on  the  3Oth  of  June  the  greater  part  of  the  Rebel  force  was  concentrated 
in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  two  corps  of  the  Union  army,  the  former 
refreshed  by  two  days  passed  in  comparative  repose  and  deliberate 
preparation  for  the  encounter,  the  latter  separated  by  a  march  of  one 
or  two  days  from  their  supporting  corps,  and  doubtful  at  what  precise 
point  they  were  to  expect  an  attack. 

And  now  the  momentous  day,  a  day  to  be  forever  remembered  in 
the  annals  of  the  country,  arrived.  Early  in  the  morning  of  the  ist 
of  July  the  conflict  began.  I  need  not  say  that  it  would  be  impossible  for 
me  to  comprise,  within  the  limits  of  the  hour,  such  a  narrative  as  would 
do  anything  like  full  justice  to  the  all-important  events  of  these  three 
great  days,  or  to  the  merit  of  the  brave  officers  and  men  of  every  rank, 
of  every  arm  of  the  service,  and  of  every  loyal  state,  who  bore  their 
part  in  the  tremendous  struggle, — alike  those  who  nobly  sacrificed 
their  lives  for  their  country,  and  those  who  survive,  many  of  them 
scarred  with  honorable  wounds,  the  objects  of  our  admiration  and 
gratitude.  The  astonishingly  minute,  accurate  and  graphic  account ; 
contained  in  the  journals  of  the  day,  prepared  from  personal  observa 
tion  by  reporters  who  witnessed  the  scenes  and  often  shared  the  peril, 
which  they  describe,  and  the  highly  valuable  "notes"  of  Professor 
Jacobs,  of  the  University  in  this  place,  to  which  I  am  greatly  indebted, 
will  abundantly  supply  the  deficiency  of  my  necessarily  too'condensed 
statement. 

General  Reynolds,  on  arriving  at  Gettysburg  in  the  morning  of  the 
ist,  found  Buford  with  his  cavalry  warmly  engaged  with  the  enemy, 
whom  he  held  most  gallantly  in  check.  Hastening  himself  to  the 
front,  General  Reynolds  directed- his  men  to  be  moved  over  the  fields 
from  the  Emmettsburg  road,  in  front  of  McMillan's  and  Dr.  Schu- 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  597 

mucker's,  under  cover  of  the  Seminary  Ridge.  Without  a  moment's 
hesitation,  he  attacked  the  enemy,  at  the  same  time  sending  orders  to 
the  Eleventh  Corps  (General  Howard's)  to  advance  as  promptly  as  possi 
ble.  General  Reynolds  immediately  found  himself  engaged  with  a  force 
which  greatly  outnumbered  his  own,  and  had  scarcely  .made  his  dis 
positions  for  the  action  when  he  fell,  mortally  wounded,  at  the  head  of 
his  advance.  The  command  of  the  First  Corps  devolved  on  General 
Doubleday,  and  that  of  the  field  on  General  Howard,  who  arrived  at 
11-30  with  Schurz's  and  Barlow's  divisions  of  the  Eleventh  Corps,  the 
latter  of  whom  received  a  severe  wound.  Thus  strengthened,  the  ad 
vantage  of  the  battle  was  for  some  time  on  our  side.  The  attacks  of 
the  Rebels  were  vigorously  repulsed  by  Wadsworth's  division  of  the 
First  Corps,  and  a  large  number  of  prisoners,  including  General 
Archer,  were  captured,  At  length,  however,  the  continued  reinforce, 
ment  of  the  Confederates  from  the  main  body  in  the  neighborhood, 
and  by  the  divisions  of  Rhodes  and  Early,  coming  down  by  separate 
lines  from  Heidlersberg  and  taking  post  on  our  extreme  right,  turned 
the  fortunes  of  the  day.  Our  army,  after  contesting  the  ground  for 
five  hours,  was  obliged  to  yield  to  the  enemy,  whose  force  outnum 
bered  them  two  to  one;  and  towards  the  close  of  the  afternoon  Gen 
eral  Howard  deemed  it  prudent  to  withdraw  the  two  corps  to  the 
heights  where  we  are  now  assembled.  The  greater  part  of  the  First 
Corps  passed  through  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  and  reached  the  hill 
without  serious  loss  or  molestation.  The  Eleventh  Corps  and  portions 
of  the  First,  not  being  aware  that  the  enemy  had  already  entered  the 
town  from  the  north,  attempted  to  force  their  way  through  Washing 
ton  and  Baltimore  streets,  which,  in  the  crowd  and  confusion  of  the 
scene,  they  did,  with  a  heavy  loss  in  prisoners. 

General  Howard  was  not  unprepared  for  this  turn  in  the  fortunes  of 
the  day.  He  had  in  the  course  of  the  morning  caused  Cemetery  Hiil 
to  be  occupied  by  General  Steinwehr  wirh  the  second  division  of  the 
Eleventh  Corps.  About  the  time  of  the  withdrawal  of  our  troops  to 
the  hill  General  Hancock  arrived,  having  been  sent  by  General  Meade, 
on  hearing  of  the  death  of  Reynolds,  to  assume  the  command  of  the 
field  until  he  himself  could  reach  the  front.  In  conjunction  with  Gen 
eral  Howard,  General  Hancock  immediately  proceeded  to  post  troops 
and  to  repel  an  attack  on  our  right  flank.  This  attack  was  feebly 
made  and  promptly  repulsed.  At  nightfall,  our  troops  on  the  hill, 
who  had  so  gallantly  sustained  themselves  during  the  toil  and  peril  of 
the  day,  were  cheered  by  the  arrival  of  General  Slocum  with  the 
Twelfth  Corps  and  of  General  Sickles  with  a  part  of  the  Third. 

Such  was  the  fortune  of  the  first  day,  commencing  with  decided  suc 
cess  to  our  arms,  followed  by  a  check,  but  ending  in  the  occupation  of 
this  all-important  position.  To  you,  fellow-citizens  of  Gettysburg,  I 
need  not  attempt  to  portray  the  anxieties  of  the  ensuing  night.  Wit 
nessing  as  you  had  done  with  sorrow  the  withdrawal  of  our 


598  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

army  through  your  streets,  with  a  considerable  loss  of  prisoners, — 
mourning  as  you  did  over  the  brave  men  who  had  fallen,  shocked  with 
the  wide-spread  desolation  around  you,  of  which  the  wanton  burning 
of  the  Harman  House  had  given  the  signal, — ignorant  of  the  near  ap 
proach  of  General  Meade,  you  passed  the  weary  hours  of  the  night  in 
painful  expectation. 

Long  before  the  dawn  of  the  2d  of  July,  the  new  Commander-in 
Chief  had  reached  the  ever-memorable  field  of  service  and  glory. 
Having  received  intelligence  of  the  events  in  progress,  and  informed 
by  the  reports  of  Generals  Hancock  and  Howard  of  the  favorable 
character  of  the  position,  he  determined  to  give  battle  to  the  enemy  at 
this  point.  He  accordingly  directed  the  remaining  corps  of  the  army 
to  concentrate  at  Gettysbm-g  with  all  possible  expedition,  and  break 
ing  up  his  headquarters  at  Taneytown  at  10  P.M..  he  arrived  at  the 
front  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  2d  of  July.  Few  were  the 
moments  given  to  sleep,  during  the  rapid  watches  of  that  brief  mid 
summer's  night,  by  officers  or  men,  though  half  of  our  troops  were  ex 
hausted  by  the  conflict  of  the  day,  and  the  residue  wearied  by  the 
forced  marches  which  had  brought  them  to  the  rescue.  The  full  moon, 
veiled  by  thin  clouds,  shone  down  that  night  on  a  strangely  unwonted 
scene.  The  silence  of  the  graveyard  was  broken  by  the  heavy  tramp 
of  armed  men,  by  the  neigh  of  the  war-horse,  the  harsh  rattle  of  the 
wheels  of  artillery  hurrying  to  their  stations,  and  all  the  indescribable 
tumult  of  preparation.  The  various  corps  of  the  army,  as  they  ar 
rived,  were  moved  to  their  positions,  on  the  spot  where  we  are  assem 
bled  and  the  ridges  that  extend  southeast  and  southwest;  batteries 
were  planted,  and  breastworks  thrown  up.  The  Second  and  Fifth  corps, 
with  the  rest  of  the  Third,  had  reached  the  ground  by  seven  o'clock, 
A.M.;  but  it  was  not  till  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  that  Sedgwick 
arrived  with  the  Sixth  corps.  He  had  marched  thirty-four  miles 
since  nine  o'clock  on  the  evening  before.  It  was  only  on  his  ar 
rival  that  the  Union  army  approached  an  equality  of  numbers  with 
that  of  the  rebels,  who  were  posted  upon  the  opposite  and  parallel 
ridge,  distant  from  a  mile  to  a  mile  and  a  half,  overlapping  our 
position  on  either  wing,  and  probably  exceeding  by  ten  thousand  the 
army  of  General  Meade. 

And  here  I  cannot  but  remark  on  the  providential  inaction  of  the 
rebel  army.  Had  the  contest  been  renewed  by  it  at  daylight  on  the 
2d  of  July,  with  the  First  and  Eleventh  corps  exhausted  by  the  battle 
and  the  retreat,  the  Third  and  Twelfth  weary  from  their  forced  march, 
and  the  Second,  Fifth,  and  Sixth  not  yet  arrived,  nothing  but  a  miracle 
could  have  saved  the  army  from  a  great  disaster.  Instead  of  this, 
the  day  dawned,  the  sun  rose,  the  cool  hours  of  the  morning  passed, 
the  forenoon  and  a  considerable  part  of  the  afternoon  wore  away, 
without  the  slightest  aggressive  movement  on  the  part  of  the  enemy. 
Thus  time  was  given  for  half  of  our  forces  to  arrive  and  take  their 


ED  WARD   EVERETT.  599 

place  in  the  lines,  while  the  rest  of  the  army  enjoyed  a  much-needed 
hali-day's  repose. 

At  length,  between  three  and  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  work 
of  death  began,  A  signal  gun  from  the  hostile  batteries  was  followed 
by  a  tremendous  cannonade  along  the  rebel  lines,  and  this  by  a  heavy 
advance  of  infantry,  brigade  after  brigade,  commencing  on  the 
enemy's  right  against  the  left  of  our  arm}',  and  so  onward  to  the  left 
centre,  A  forward  movement  of  General  Sickles,  to  gain  a  command 
ing  position  from  which  to  repel  the  rebel  attack,  drew  upon  him  a 
destructive  fire  from  the  enemy's  batteries,  and  a  furious  assault  from 
Longstreet's  and  Hill's  advancing  troops  After  a  brave  resistance  on 
the  part  of  his  corps,  he  was  forced  back,  himself  falling  severely 
wounded.  This  was  the  critical  moment  of  the  second  day;  but  the 
Fifth  and  a  part  of  the  Sixth  corps,  with  portions  of  the  First  and 
Second,  were  promptly  brought  to  the  support  of  the  Third.  The  strug 
gle  was  fierce  and  murderous,  but  by  sunset  our  success  was  decisive, 
and  the  enemy  was  driven  back  in  confusion.  The  most  important 
service  was  rendered  toward  the  close  of  the  day,  in  the  memorable 
advance  between  Round  Top  and  Little  Round  Top,  by  General  Craw 
ford's  division  of  the  Fifth  corps,  consisting  of  two  brigades  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Reserves,  of  which  one  company  was  from  this  town 
and  neighborhood.  The  rebel  force  was  driven  back  with  great  loss 
in  killed  and  prisoners.  At  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  a  desperate 
attempt  was  made  by  the  enemy  to  storm  the  position  of  the  Eleventh 
corps  on  Cemetery  Hill ;  but  here,  too,  after  a  terrible  conflict,  he 
was  repulsed  with  immense  loss.  Ewell,  on  our  extreme  right, 
which  had  been  weakened  by  the  withdrawal  of  the  troops  sent 
over  to  support  our  left,  had  succeeded  in  gaining  a  foothold 
within  a  portion  of  our  lines,  near  Spangler's  Spring.  This  was 
the  only  advantage  obtained  by  the  rebels  to  compensate  them  for 
the  disasters  of  the  day,  and  of  this,  as  we  shall  see,  they  were  soon 
cie  -»rived. 

Such  was  the  result  of  the  second  act  of  this  eventful  drama, — a 
day  hard  fought,  and  at  one  moment  anxious,  but,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  the  slight  reverse  just  named,  crowned  with  dearly  earned  but 
uniform  success  to  our  arms,  auspicious  of  a  glorious  termination  of 
the  final  struggle  On  these  good  omens  the  night  fell. 

In  the  course  of  the  night  General  Geary  returned  to  his  position  on 
the  right,  from  which  he  had  hastened  the  day  before  to  strengthen  the 
Third  Corps  He  immediately  engaged  the  enemy,  and  after  a  sharp 
and  decisive  action,  drove  them  out  of  our  lines,  recovering  the  ground 
which  had  been  lost  on  the  preceding  day.  A  spirited  contest  was 
kept  up  all  the  morning  on  this  part  of  the  line;  but  General  Geary, 
reinforced  by  Wheaton's  brigade  of  the  Sixth  Corps,  maintained  his 
position,  and  inflicted  very  "severe  losses  on  the  Rebels. 

Such  was  the  cheering  rornrnenccment  of  the  third  (lay's  work,  and 
A..  P.-2H. 


6oo  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

with  it  ended  all  serious  attempts  of  the  enemy  on  our  right.  As  on 
the  preceding  day,  his  efforts  wtre  now  mainly  directed  against  our 
left  centre  and  left  wing.  From  eleven  till  half-past  one  o'clock  all 
was  still,  a  solemn  pause  of  preparation,  as  if  both  armies  were  nerv 
ing  themselves  for  the  supreme  effort.  At  length,  the  awful  silence, 
more  terrible  than  the  wildest  tumult  of  battle,  was  broken  by  the 
roar  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  pieces  of  artillery  from  the  opposite 
ridges,  joining  in  a  cannonade  of  unsurpassed  violence — the  Rebel 
batteries  along  two-thirds  of  their  line  pouring  their  fire  upon  Cemetery 
Hill  and  the  centre  and  left  wing  of  our  army.  Having  attempted  in 
this  way  for  two  hours,  but  without  success,  to  shake  the  steadiness  of 
our  lines,  the  enemy  rallied  his  forces  for  a  last  grand  assault.  Their 
attack  was  principally  directed  against  the  position  of  our  Second 
Corps.  Successive  lines  of  rebel  infantry  moved  forward  with  equal 
spirit  and  steadiness  from  their  cover  on  the  wooded  crest  of  Seminary 
Ridge,  crossing  the  intervening  plain,  and,  supported  right  and  left 
by  their  choicest  brigades,  charged  furiously  up  to  our  batteries.  Our 
own  brave  troops  of  the  Second  Corps,  supported  by  Doubleday's 
division  and  Stannard's  brigade  of  the  First,  received  the  shock  with 
firmness;  the  ground  on  both  sides  was  long  and  fiercely  contested, 
and  was  covered  with  the  killed  and  the  wounded;  the  tide  of  battle 
flowed  and  ebbed  across  the  plain,  till,  after  "a  determined  and 
gallant  struggle,"  as  it  is  pronounced  by  General  Lee,  the.  rebel  ad 
vance,  consisting  of  two-thirds  of  Hill's  Corps  and  the  whole  of  Long- 
street's — including  Pickett's  division,  the  elite  of  his  corps,  which  had 
not  yet  been  under  fire,  and  was  now  depended  upon  to  decide  the 
fortune  of  this  last  eventful  day — was  driven  back  with  prodigious 
slaughter,  discomfited  and  broken.  While  these  events  were  in  pro 
gress  at  our  left  centre,  the  enemy  was  driven,  with  a  considerable 
loss  of  prisoners,  from  a  strong  position  on  our  extreme  left,  from 
which  he  was  annoying  our  forces  on  Little  Round  Top.  In  the  terrific 
assault  on  our  centre  Generals  Hancock  and  Gibbon  were  wounded, 
In  the  Rebel  army,  Generals  Armistead,  Kemper,  Petigru,  and  Trim 
ble  were  wounded,  the  first-named  mortally,  the  latter  also  made 
prisoner,  General  Garnett  was  killed,  and  thirty-five  hundred  officers 
and  men  made  prisoners. 

These  were  the  expiring  agonies  of  the  three  days'  conflict,  and  with 
them  the  battle  ceased.  It  was  fought  by  the  Union  army  with  cour 
age  and  skill,  from  the  first  Cavalry  skirmish  on  Wednesday  morning 
to  the  fearful  rout  of  the  enemy  on  Friday  afternoon,  by  every  arm. 
and  every  rank  of  the  service,  by  officers  and  men,  by  cavalry,  artil 
lery,  and  infantry.  The  superiority  of  numbers  was  with  the  enemy, 
who  were  led  by  the  ablest  commanders  in  their  service;  and  if  the 
Union  force  had  the  advantage  of  a  strong  position,  the  Confederates 
had  that  of  choosing  time  and  place,  the  prestige  of  former  victories 
over  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  of  the  success  of  the  first  day. 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  60 1 

Victory  does  not  always  fall  to  the  lot  of  those  who  deserve  it;  but 
that  so  decisive  a  triumph,  under  circumstances  like  these,  was  gained 
by  our  troops,  I  would  ascribe,  under  Providence,  to  that  spirit  of 
exalted  patriotism  that  animated  them,  and  a  consicousness  that  they 
were  fighting  in  a  righteous  cause. 

All  hope  of  defeating  our  army,  and  securing  v/h at  General  Lee  calls 
"the  valuable  results"  of  such  an  achievement  having  vanished,  he 
thought  only  of  rescuing  from  destruction  the  remains  of  his  shattered 
forces.  In  killed,  wounded,  and  missing  he  had,  as  far  as  can  be  as 
certained,  suffered  a  loss  of  about  37,000  men — rather  more  than  one- 
third  of  the  army  with  which  he  is  supposed  to  have  marched  into 
Pennsylvania.  Perceiving  that  his  only  safety  was  in  rapid  retreat, 
he  commenced  withdrawing  his  troops  at  daybreak  on  the  4th,  throw 
ing  up  field-works  in  front  of  our  left,  which,  assuming  the  appearance 
of  a  new  position,  were  intended  probably  to  protect  the  rear  of  his 
army  in  their  retrea'.  That  day,  sad  celebration  of  the  4th  of  July 
for  an  army  of  Americans  !  was  passed  by  him  in  hurrying  off  his 
tra;ns.  By  nightfall  the  main  army  was  in  full  retreat  on  the  Cashtown 
and  Fairfield  roads,  and  it  moved  with  such  precipitation,  that,  short 
as  the  nights  were,  by  daylight  the  following  morning,  notwithstand 
ing  a  heavy  rain,  the  rear-guard  had  left  its  position.  The  struggle 
of  the  last  two  days  resembled  in  many  respects  the  Battle  of  Waterloo; 
and  if,  on  the  evening  of  the  third  day.  General  Meade,  like  the  Duke 
of  Wellington,  had  had  the  assistance  of  a  powerful  auxiliary  army  to 
take  up  the  pursuit,  the  rout  of  the  Rebels  would  have  been  as  com 
plete  as  that  of  Napoleon. 

Owing  to  the  circumstance  just  named,  the  intentions  of  the  enemy 
were  not  apparent  on  the  4th.  The  moment  his  retreat  was  discovered, 
the  following  morning,  he  was  pursued  by  our  cav-alry  on  the  Cash- 
town  road  and  through  the  Emmattsburg  and  Monterey  passes,  and 
by  Sedgwick's  corps  on  the  Fairfield  road;  his  rear  guard  was  briskly 
attacked  at  Fairfield;  a  great  number  Qf  wagons  and  ambulances  were 
captured  in  the  passes  of  the  mountains;  the  country  swarmed  with 
his  stragglers  and  his  wounded  were  literally  emptied  from  the 
vehicles  containing  them  into  the  farm-houses  on  the  road.  General 
Lee,  in  his  report,  makes  repeated  mention  of  the  Union  prisoners 
whom  he  conveyed  into  Virginia,  somewhat  overstating  their  number. 
He  states,  also,  that  "such  of  his  wounded  as  were  in  a  condition  to 
be  removed"  were  forwarded  to  Williamsport.  He  does  not  mention 
that  the  number  of  his  wounded  not  removed,  and  left  to  the  Christian 
care  of  the  victors,  was  7,540,  not  one  of  whom  failed  of  any  atten 
tion  which  it  was  possible,  under  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  to 
afford  them;  not  one  of  whom,  certainly,  has  been  put  upon  Libby 
Prison  fare — lingering  death  by  starvation.  Heaven  forbid,  however, 
that  we  should  claim  any  merit  for  the  exercise  of  common  humanity  ! 

Under  the  protection  of  the  mountain  ridge,   whose  narrow  passes 


6  o  2  A  ME  RICA  X  PA  7  'RIO  TISM. 

are  easily  held  even  by  a  retreating  army,  General  Lee  reached  \Vil- 
liamspoft  in  safety,  and  took  up  a  strong  position  opposite  to  that 
place.  General  Meade  necessarily  pursued  with  the  main  arrny  by  a 
flank  movement  through  Middletown,  Turner's  pass  having  been  se 
cured  by  General  French.  Passing  through  the  South  Mountain,  the 
Union  array  came  up  with  that  of  the  Rebels  on  the  1 2th,  and  found 
it  securely  posted  on  the  heights  of  Marsh  Run.  The  position  was 
reconnoitred,  and  preparations  made  for  an  attack  on  the  I3th.  The 
depth  of  the  river,  swollen  by  the  recent  rains,  authorized  the  expec 
tation  that  the  enemy  would  be  brought  to  a  general  engagement  the 
following  day.  An  advance  was  accordingly  made  by  General  Meade 
on  the  morning  of  the  i-jth;  but  it  was  soon  found  that  the  Rebels  had 
escaped  in  the  night,  with  such  haste  that  E well's  Corps  forded  the  river 
where  the  water  was  breast  high.  The  cavalry,  which  had  rendered 
the  most  important  services  during  the  three  days,  and  in  harassing 
the  enemy's  retreat,  was  now  sent  in  pursuit,  and  captured  two  guns 
and  a  large  number  of  prisoners.  In  an  action  which  took  place  at 
Falling  Waters,  General  Petigru  was  mortally  wounded.  General 
Meade,  in  further  pursuit  of  the  Rebels,  crossed  the  Potomac  at  Ber 
lin.  Thus  again  covering  the  approaches  to  Washington,  he  com 
pelled  the  enemy  to  pass  the  Blue  Ridge  at  one  of  the  upper  gaps;  and 
in  about  six  weeks  from  the  commencement  of  the  campaign,  General 
Lee  found  himself  again  on  the  south  side  of  the  Rappahannock,  with 
the  probable  loss  of  about  a  third  part  of  his  army. 

Smch,  most  inadequately  recounted,  is  the  history  of  the  ever-memo 
rable  three  days,  and  of  the  events  immediately  preceding  and  follow 
ing.  It  has  been  pretended,  in  order  to  diminish  the  magnitude  of 
this  disaster  to  the  rebel  cause,  that  it  was  merely  the  repulse  of  an 
attack  on  a  strongly  defended  position.  The  tremendous  losses  on 
both  sides  are  a  sufficient  answer  to  this  misrepresentation,  and  attest 
the  courage  and  obstinacy  with  which  the  three  days'  battle  was 
waged.  Few  of  the  great  conflicts  of  modern  times  have  cost  victors 
and  vanquished  so  great  a  sacrifice.  On  the  Union  side,  there  fell,  in 
the  whole  campaign,  of  generals  killed,  Reynolds,  Weed,  and  Zook, 
and  wounded,  Barlow,  Barnes,  Butterfield,  Doubleday,  Gibbon, 
Graham,  Hancock,  Sickles,  and  Warren;  while  of  officers  below  the 
rank  of  general,  and  men,  there  were  2834  killed,  13,709  wounded, 
and  66 13  missing.  On  the  Confederate  side,  there  were  killed  on  the 
field  or  mortally  wounded,  Generals  Armistead,  Barksdale,  Garnett, 
Pender,  Petigru,  and  Semmes,  and  wounded,  Heth,  Hood,  Johnson, 
Kempcr,  Kimball,  and  Trimble.  Of  officers  below  the  rank  of  gen 
eral,  and  men,  there  were  taken  prisoners,  including  the  wounded, 
13,621,  an  amount  ascertained  officially.  Of  the  wounded  in  a  condi 
tion  to  be  removed,  of  the  killed,  and  the  missing,  the  enemy  has 
made  no  return.  They  are  estimated  from  the  best  data  which  the 
nature  of  the  case  admits,  at  23,000.  General  Meade  also  captured 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  603 

three  cannon  and  forty-one  standards;  and  24,978  small  arms  were 
collected  on  the  battle-field. 

I  must  leave  to  others,  who  can  do  it  from  personal  observation,  to 
describe  the  mournful  spectacle  presented  by  these  hillsides  and  plains 
at  the  close  of  the  terrible  conflict.  It  was  a  saying  of  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  that,  next  to  a  defeat,  the  saddest  thing  is  a  victory.  The 
horrors  of  the  battle-field,  after  the  contest  is  over,  the  sights  and 
sounds  of  woe — let  me  throw  a  pall  over  the  scene,  which  no  words 
can  adequately  depict  to  those  who  have  not  witnessed  it,  on  which  no 
one  who  has  witnessed  it,  and  who  has  a  heart  in  his  bosom,  can  bear 
to  dwell.  One  drop  of  balm  alone,  one  drop  of  heavenly  life-giving 
balm,  mingles  in  this  bitter  cup  of  misery.  Scarcely  has  the  cannon 
ceased  to  roar,  when  the  brethren  and  sisters  of  Christian  benevo 
lence,  ministers  of  compassion,  angels  of  pity,  hasten  to  the  field  and 
the  hospital  to  moisten  the  parched  tongue,  to  bind  the  ghastly 
wounds,  to  soothe  the  parting  agonies  alike  of  friend  and  foe,  and  to 
catch  the  last  whispered  messages  of  love  from  dying  lips.  "Carry 
this  miniature  back  to  my  dear  wife,  but  do  not  take  it  from  my  bosom 
till  I  am  gone."  "Tell  my  little  sister  not  to  grieve  for  me;  lam 
willing  to  die  for  my  country."  "  O  that  my  mother  were  here!" 
When,  since  Aaron  stood  between  the  living  and  the  dead,  was  there 
ever  so  gracious  a  ministry  as  this?  It  has  been  said  that  it  is  char 
acteristic  of  Americans  to  treat  women  with  a  deference  not  paid  to 
them  in  any  other  country.  I  will  not  undertake  to  say  whether  this 
is  so;  but  1  will  say,  that,  since  this  terrible  war  has  been  waged,  the 
women  of  the  loyal  states,  if  never  before,  have  entitled  themselves  to 
our  highest  admiration  and  gratitude — alike  those  who  at  home,  often 
with  fingers  unused  to  the  toil,  often  bowed  beneath  their  own  domes 
tic  cares,  have  performed  an  amount  of  daily  labor  not  exceeded  by 
those  who  work  for  their  daily  bread,  and  those  who,  in  the  hospital 
and  the  tents  of  the  sanitary  and  Christian  commissions,  have  ren 
dered  services  which  millions  could  not  buy.  Happily,  the  labor  and 
the  service  are  their  own  reward.  Thousands  of  matrons  and  thou 
sands  of  maidens  have  experienced  a  delight  in  these  homely  toils  and 
services,  compared  with  which  the  pleasures  of  the  ball-room  and  the 
opera-house  are  tame  and  unsatisfactory.  This  on  earth  is  reward 
enough,  but  a  richer  is  in  store  for  them.  Yes,  brothers,  sisters  of 
charity,  while  you  bind  up  the  wounds  of  the  poor  sufferers — the  hum 
blest,  perhaps,  that  have  shed  their  blood  for  the  country — forget  net 
who  it  is  that  will  hereafter  say  to  you,  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done 
it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me." 

And  now,  friends,  fellow-citizens,  as  we  stand  among  these  honored 
graves,  the  momentous  question  presents  itself,  which  of  the  two  par- 
tics  -to  the  war  is  responsible  for  all  this  suffering,  for  this  dreadful 
sacrifice  of  life — the  lawful  and  constituted  government  of  the  United 
States,  or  the  ambitious  men  who  have  ;ebelled  again?!  it?  I  say 


6 04  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

"  rebelled"  against  it,  although  Earl  Russell,  the  British  Secretary  of 
State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  in  his  recent  temperate  and  conciliatory 
speech  in  Scotland,  seems  to  intimate  that  no  prejudice  ought  to  at 
tach  to  that  word,  inasmuch  as  our  English  forefathers  rebelled  against 
Charles  I.  and  James  II.,  and  our  American  fathers  rebelled  against 
George  III.  These  certainly  are  venerable  precepts,  but  they  prove 
only  that  it  is  just  and  proper  to  rebel  against  oppressive  govern 
ments.  They  do  not  prove  that  it  was  just  and  proper  for  the  son  of 
James  II.  to  rebel  against  George  I.,  or  his  grandson  Charles  Edward 
to  rebel  against  George  II.;  nor,  as  it  seems  to  me.  ought  these  dy 
nastic  struggles,  little  better  than  family  quarrels,  to  be  compared  with 
this  monstrous  conspiracy  against  the  American  Union.  These  pre 
cedents  do  not  prove  that  it  was  just  and  proper  for  the  "disappointed 
great  men"  of  the  cotton-growing  states  to  rebel  against  "the  most 
beneficent  government  of  which  history  gives  us  any  account,"  as  the 
Vice-President  of  the  Confederacy,  in  November,  1860,  charged  them 
with  doing.  They  do  not  create  a  presumption  even  in  favor  of  the 
disloyal  slave-holders  of  the  South,  who,  living  under  a  government 
of  which  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis,  in  the  session  of  1860-61,  said  that  it 
was  "  the  best  government  ever  instituted  by  man,  uncxceptionally 
administered,  and  under  which  the  people  have  been  prosperous  be 
yond  comparison  with  any  other  people  whose  career  has  been  re 
corded  in  history,"  rebelled  against  it  because  their  aspiring  politi 
cians,  himself  among  the  rest,  were  in  danger  of  losing  their  monopoly 
of  its  offices.  What  would  have  been  thought  by  an  impartial  pos 
terity  of  the  American  rebellion  against  George  III.,  if  the  colonists 
had  at  all  times  been  more  than  equally  represented  in  Parliament, 
and  James  Otis  and  Patrick  Henry  and  Washington  and  Franklin  and 
the  Adamses  and  Hancock  and  Jefferson,  and  men  of  their  stamp,  had 
for  two  generations  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the  sovereign  and  ad 
ministered  the  government  of  the  empire?  What  would  have  been 
thought  of  the  rebellion  against  Charles  I.,  if  Cromwell  and  the  men  of 
his  school  had  been  the  responsible  advisers  of  that  prince  from  his 
accession  to  the  throne,  and  then,  on  account  of  a  partial  change  in  the 
ministry,  had  brought  his  head  to  the  block,  and  involved  the  country 
in  a  desolating  war,  for  the  sake  of  dismembering  it  and  establishing 
a  new  government  south  of  the  Trent  ?  What  would  have  been 
thought  of  the  Whigs  of  1688,  if  they  had  themselves  composed  the 
Cabinet  of  James  II.,  and  been  the  advisers  of  the  measures  and  the 
promoters  of  the  policy  which  drove  him  into  exile  ?  The  Puritans  of 
1640  and  the  Whigs  of  1688  rebelled  against  arbitrary  power  in  order 
to  establish  constitutional  liberty.  If  they  had  risen  against  Charles 
and  James  because  those  monarchs  favored  equal  rights,  and  in  order 
themselves  "  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world"  to  establish 
an  oligarchy  "founded  on  the  corner-stone  of  slavery,"  they  would 
truly  have  furnished  a  precedent  for  the  rebels  of  the  South,  but  their 


EDWARD  EVERETT.  605 

cause  would  not  have  been  sustained  by  the  eloquence  of  Pym  or  of 
Somers,  nor  sealed  with  the  blood  of  Hampden  or  Russell. 

I  call  the  war  which  the  Confederates  are  waging  against  the  Union 
a  "rebellion,"  because  it  is  one,  and  in  grave  matters  it  is  best  to 
call  things  by  their  right  names.  I  speak  of  it  as  a  crime,  because  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  so  regards  it,  and  puts  "rebellion" 
on  a  par  with  "invasion."  The  constitution  and  law,  not  only  of 
England,  but  of  every  civilized  country,  regard  them  in  the  same 
light;  or  rather  they  consider  the  rebel  in  arms  as  far  worse  than  the 
alien  enemy.  To  levy  war  against  the  United  States  is  the  constitu 
tional  definition  of  treason,  and  that  crime  is  by  every  civili/ed  gov 
ernment  regarded  as  the  highest  which  citizen  or  subject  can  commit. 
Not  content  with  the  sanctions  of  human  justice,  of  all  the  crimes 
against  the  law  of  the  land  it  is  singled  out  for  the  denunciations  of 
religion.  The  litanies  of  every  church  in  Christendom  whose  ritual 
embraces  that  office,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  from  the  metropolitan 
cathedrals  of  Europe  to  the  humblest  missionary  chapel  in  the  islands 
of  ihe  sea,  concur  with  the  Church  of  England  in  imploring  the  Sover 
eign  of  the  universe,  by  the  most  awful  adjurations  which  the  heart  of 
man  can  conceive  or  his  tongue  utter,  to  "deliver  us  from  sedition, 
privy  conspiracy,  and  rebellion."  And  reason  good  ;  for  while  a 
rebellion  a^iinst  tyranny — a  rebellion  designed,  after  prostrating  arbi 
trary  power,  to  establish  free  government  on  the  basis  of  justice  and 
truth — is  an  enterprise  on  which  good  men  and  angels  may  look  with 
complacency,  an  unprovoked  rebellion  of  ambitious  men  against  a 
beneficent  government,  for  the  purpose — the  avowed  purpose — of  es 
tablishing,  extending,  and  perpetuating  any  form  of  injustice  and 
wrong,  is  an  imitation  on  earth  of  that  first  foul  revolt  of  "  the  infernal 
serpent,"  against  which  the  Supreme  Majesty  of  heaven  sent  forth  the 
armed  myriads  of  his  angels,  and  clothed  the  right  arm  of  his  Son' with 
the  three-bolted  thunders  of  omnipotence. 

Lord  Bacon,  in  "the  true  marshalling  of  the  sovereign  degrees  of 
honor,"  assigns  the  first  place  to  the  "  conditores  imperiorum,  founders 
of  states  and  commonwealths;"  and,  truly,  to  build  up  from  the  dis 
cordant  elements  of  our  nature,  the  passions,  the  interests,  and  the 
opinions  of  the  individual  man,  the  rivalries  of  family,  clan  and  tribe, 
the  influences  of  climate  and  geographical  position,  the  accidents  of 
peace  and  war  accumulated  for  ages, — to  build  up  from  these  often 
times  wrarring  elements  a  well-compacted,  prosperous,  and  powerful 
state,  if  it  were  to  be  accomplished  by  one  effort  or  in  one  generation 
would  require  a  more  than  mortal  skill.  To  contribute  in  some  nota 
ble  degree  to  this,  the  greatest  work  of  man,  by  wise  and  patriotic 
counsel  in  peace  and  loyal  heroism  in  war,  is  as  high  as  human  merit 
can  well  rise,  and  far  more  than  to  any  of  those  to  whom  Bacon  assigns 
this  highest  place  of  honor,  whose  names  can  hardly  be  repeated  with 
out  a  wondering  smile,  —  Romulus,  Cyrus,  Csesar,  Gothman,  Ismael, — 


606  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

it  is  due  to  our  Washington  as  the  founder  of  the  American  Union. 
But  if  to  achieve,  or  help  to  achieve,  this  greatest  work  of  man's  wisdom 
and  virtue  gives  title  to  a  place  among  the  chief  benefactors,  rightful 
heirs  of  the  benedictions  of  mankind,  by  equal  reason  shall  the  bold, 
bad  men  who  seek  to  undo  the  noble  work,  cvcrsores  imperiorum,  de 
stroyers  of  states,  who  for  base  and  selfish  ends  rebel  against  beneficent 
governments,  seek  to  overturn  wise  constitutions,  to  lay  powerful  re- 
pubLcan  Unions  at  the  foot  of  foreign  thrones,  to  bring  on  civil  and 
foreign  war,  anarchy  at  home,  dictation  .abroad,  desolation,  ruin, — by 
equal  reason,  I  say,  yes,  a  thousand-fold  stronger,  shall  they  inherit 
the  execrations  of  the  ages. 

But  to  hide  the  deformity  of  the  crime  under  the  cloak  of  that  sophis 
try  which  strives  to  make  the  worse  appear  the  better  reason,  we  are 
told  by  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion  that  in  our  complex  system  of  gov 
ernment  the  separate  states  are  "sovereigns"  and  that  the  central  power 
is  only  an  "  agenc}%"  established  by  these  sovereigns  to  manage  certain 
little  affairs, — such,  forsooth,  as  peace,  war,  army,  navy,  finance,  ter 
ritory,  and  relations  with  the  native  tribes,  which  they  could  not  so 
conveniently  administer  themselves.  It  happens,  unfortunately -for  this 
theory,  that  the  Federal  Constitution  (which  has  been  adopted  by  the 
people  of  every  state  of  the  Union  as  much  as  their  own  state  constitu 
tions  have  been  adopted,  and  is  declared  to  be  paramount  to  them)  no 
where  recognizes  the  states  as  "sovereigns," — in  fact,  that,  by  their 
names  it  does  not  recognize  them  at  all  ;  wThile  the  authority  estab 
lished  by  that  instrument  is  recognized,  in  its  text,  not  as  an  "  agency," 
but  as  "the  government  of  the  United  States."  By  that  Constitution, 
moreover,  which  purports  in  its  preamble  to  be  ordained  and  established 
by  "  the  people  of  the  United  States,"  it  is  expressly  provided,  that  "  the 
members  of  the  state  legislatures,  and  all  executive  and  judicial  officers, 
shall  be  bound  by  oath  or  affirmation  to  support  the  Constitution.'' 
Now  it  is  a  common  thing,  under  all  governments,  for  an  agent  to  be 
bound  by  oath  to  be  faithful  to  his  sovereign  ;  but  I  never  heard  before 
of  sovereigns  being  bound  by  oath  to  be  faithful  to  their  agency. 

Certainly  I  do  not  deny  that  the  separate  states  are  clothed  with 
sovereign  powers  for  the  administration  of  local  affairs  ;  it  is  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  features  of  our  mixed  system  of  government.  But  it  is 
equally  true,  that,  in  adopting  the  federal  Constitution,  the  states  abdi 
cated,  by  express  renunciation,  all  the  most  important  functions  of  na 
tional  sovereignty,  and,  by  one  comprehensive,  self-denying  clause,  gave 
up  all  right  to  contravene  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Spe 
cifically,  and  by  enumeration,  they  renounced  all  the  most  important 
pr orogatives  of  independent  states  for  peace  and  for  war, — the  right  to 
keep  troops  or  ships  of  war  in  time  of  peace,  or  to  engage  in  war  unless 
actually  invaded  ;  to  enter  into  compact  with  another  state  or  a  foreign 
power  ;  to  lay  any  duty  on  tonnage,  or  any  impost  on  exports  or  imports, 
without  the  consent  of  Congress  ;  to  enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance,  or 


EDWARD   ETKRETT.  607 

confederation,  to  grant  letters  of  marque  or  reprisal,  and  to  emit  bills  of 
credit, — while  all  these  powers  and  many  others  are  expressly  vested  in 
the  general  government,  to  ascribe  to  political  communities,  thus 
limited  in  their  jurisdiction, — who  cannot  even  establish  a  post-office  on 
their  own  soil, — the  character  of  independent  sovereignty,  and  to  reduce 
a  national  organization,  clothed  with  all  the  transcendent  powers  of  gov 
ernment,  to  the  name  and  condition  of  an  "  agency''  of  the  states, 
proves  nothing  but  that  the  logic  of  secession  is  on  a  par  with  its  loyalty 
and  patriotism. 

Oh,  but  "  the  reserved  rights  !"  And  what  of  the  reserved  rights  ? 
The  Tenth  Amendment  of  the  Constitution,  supposed  to  provide  for 
"reserved  rights,"  is  constantly  misquoted.  By  that  amendment, 
"the  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitution, 
nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  states,  are  reserved  to  the  states  respec 
tively,  or  to  the  people."  The  "  powers"  reserved  must  of  course  be 
such  as  could  have  been,  but  were  not,  delegated  to  the  United  States 
— could  have  been,  but  were  not,  prohibited  to  the  states;  but  to  speak 
of  the  right  of  an  individual  state  to  secede,  as  a  power  that  could 
have  been,  though  it  was  not  delegated  to  the  United  States,  is  simply 
nonsense. 

But,  waiving  this  obvious  absurdity,  can  it  need  a  serious  argument 
to  prove  that  there  can  be  no  state  right  to  enter  into  a  new  confedera 
tion  reserved  under  a  Constitution  which  expressly  prohibits  a  state 
to  "enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance,  or  confederation,"  or  any  "  agree 
ment  or  compact  with  another  state  or  a  foreign  power?"  To  say  that 
the  state  may,  by  enacting  the  preliminary  farce  of  secession,  acquire 
the  right  to  do  the  prohibited  things — to  say,  for  instance,  that  though 
the  states  in  forming  the  Constitution  delegated  to  the  United  States, 
and  prohibited  to  themselves,  the  power  of  declaring  war,  there  was 
by  implication  reserved  to  each  state  the  right  of  seceding  and  then 
declaring  w<*r;  that,  though  they  expressly  prohibited  to  the  states  and 
delegated  to  the  United  States  the  entire  treaty-making  power,  they 
reserved  by  implication  (for  an  express  reservation  is  not  pretended) 
to  the  individual  states,  to  Florida,  for  instance,  the  right  to  secede, 
and  then  to  make  a  treaty  with  Spain  retroceding  that  Spanish  colony, 
and  thus  surrendering  to  a  foreign  power  the  key  to  the  Gulf  of  Mex 
ico — to  maintain  propositions  like  these,  with  whatever  affected  seri 
ousness  it  is  done,  appears  to  me  egregious  trifling. 

Pardon  me,  my  friends,  for  dwelling  on  these  wretched  sophistries. 
But  it  is  these  which  conducted  the  armed  hosts  of  rebellion  to  your 
doors  on  the  terrible  and  glorious  days  of  July,  and  which  have 
brought  upon  the  whole  land  the  scourge  of  an  aggressive  and  wicked 
war — a  war  which  can  have  no  other  termination  compatible  with  the 
permanent  safety  and  welfare  of  the  country  but  the  complete  d<-: •iruc- 
tion  of  the  military  power  of  the  enemy.  I  have,  on  other  occasions, 
attempted  to  show  that  to  yield  to  his  demands  and  acknowledge-  his 


608  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

independence,  thus  resolving  the  Union  at  once  into  two  hostile  gov 
ernments,  with  a  certainty  of  further  disintegration,  would  annihilate 
the  strength  and  the  influence  of  the  country  as  a  member  of  the  fam 
ily  of  nations;  afford  to  foreign  powers  the  opportunity  and  the  temp 
tation  for  humiliating  and  disastrous  interference  in  our  affairs;  wrest 
from  the  Middle  and  Western  States  some  of  their  great  natural  out 
lets  to  the  sea  and  of  their  most  important  lines  of  internal  communi 
cation;  deprive  the  commerce  and  navigation  of  the  country  of  two 
thirds  of  our  sea-coast  and  of  the  fortresses  which  protect  it:  not  only 
so,  but  would  enable  each  individual  state — some  of  them  with  a  white 
population  equal  to  a  good-sized  northern  county  ;  or  rather  the 
dominant  party  in  each  state,  to  cede  its  territory,  its  harbors,  its  fort 
resses,  the  mouths  of  its  rivers,  to  any  foreign  power.  It  cannot  be 
that  the  people  of  the  loyal  states — that  twenty-two  millions  of 
brave  and  prosperous  freemen — will,  for  the  temptations  of  a  brief 
truce  in  an  eternal  border  war,  consent  to  this  hideous  national  sui 
cide. 

Do  not  think  that  I  exaggerate  the  consequences  of  yielding  to  the 
demands  of  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion.  I  understate  them.  They 
require  of  us,  not  only  all  the  sacrifices  I  have  named,  not  only  the 
cession  to  them,  a  foreign  and  hostile  power,  of  all  the  territory  of  the 
United  States  at  present  occupied  by  the  rebel  forces,  but  the  aban 
donment  to  them  of  the  vast  regions  we  have  rescued  from  their 
grasp — of  Maryland,  of  a  part  of  Eastern  Virginia,  and  the  whole  of 
Western  Virginia;  the  sea-coast  of  North  and  South  Carolina,  Geor 
gia,  and  Florida;  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Missouri;  Arkansas  and 
the  larger  portion  of  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  and  Texas — in  most  of 
which,  with  the  exception  of  lawless  guerillas,  there  is  not  a  rebel  in 
arms;  in  all  of  which  the  great  majority  of  the  people  are  loyal  to  the 
Union. 

We  must  give  back,  too,  the  helpless  colored  population,  thou 
sands  of  whom  are  perilling  their  lives  in  the  ranks  of  our  armies,  to 
a  bondage  rendered  tenfold  more  bitter  by  the  momentary  enjoyment 
of  freedom.  Finally,  we  must  surrender  every  man  in  the  southern 
country,  white  or  black,  who  has  moved  a  finger  or  spoken  a  word  for 
the  restoration  of  the  Union,  to  a  reign  of  terror  as  remorseless  as* 
that  of  Robespierre,  which  has  been  the  chief  instrument  by  which 
the  rebellion  has  been  organized  and  sustained,  and  which  has  already 
filled  the  prisons  of  the  South  with  noble  men,  whose  only  crime  is, 
that  they  are  not  the  worst  of  criminals.  The  South  is  full  of  such 
men. 

I  do  not  believe  there  has  been  a  day  since  the  election  of  Presi 
dent  Lincoln,  when,  if  an  ordinance  of  secession  could  have  been 
fairly  submitted,  after  a  free  discussion,  to  the  mass  of  the  people  in 
any  single  southern  state,  a  majority  of  ballots  would  have  been  given 
in  its  favor.  No,  not  in  South  Carolina.  It  is  not  possible  that  the 


EDWARD  EVERETT.  Cog 

majority  of  the  people,  even  of  that  state,  if  permitted,  without  fear 
or  favor,  to  give  a  ballot  on  the  question,  would  have  abandoned  a 
leader  like  Petigru,  and  all  the  memories  of  the  Gadsdens,  the  Rut- 
ledges,  and  the  Cotesworth  Finckneys  of  the  Revolutionary  and  Con 
stitutional  age  to  follow  the  agitators  of  the  present  day. 

Nor  must  we  be  deterred  from  the  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war 
by  the  suggestion  continually  thrown  out  by  the  rebels  and  those  who 
sympathize  with  them,  that,  however  it  might  have  been  at  an  earlier 
stage,  there  has  been  engendered  by  the  operations  of  the  war  a  state 
of  exasperation  and  bitterness,  which,  independent  of  all  reference  to 
the  original  nature  of  the  matters  in  controversy,  will  forever  pre 
vent  the  restoration  of  the  Union  and  the  return  of  harmony  between 
the  two  great  sections  of  the  country.  This  opinion  I  take  to  be  en 
tirely  without  foundation. 

No  man  can  deplore  more  than  1  do  the  miseries  of  every  kind  un 
avoidably  incident  to  the  war.  Who  could  stand  on  this  spot  and  call 
to  mind  the  scenes  of  the  first  days  of  July  without  any  feeling  ?  A 
sad  foreboding  of  what  would  ensue,  if  war  should  break  out  be 
tween  North  and  South,  has  haunted  me  through  life,  and  led  me, 
perhaps  toe  long,  to  tread  in  the  path  of  hopeless  compromise,  in  the 
fond  endeavor  to  conciliate  those  who  were  predetermined  not  to  be 
conciliated. 

But  it  is  not  true,  as  is  pretended  by  the  rebels  and  their 
sympathizers,  that  the  war  has  been  carried  on  by  the  United  States 
without  entire  regard  to  those  temperaments  which  are  enjoined  by 
the  law  of  nations,  by  our  modern  civilization,  and  by  the  spirit  of 
Christianity.  It  would  be  quite  easy  to  point  out,  in  the  recent  mili 
tary  history  of  the  leading  European  powers,  acts  of  violence  and 
cruelty,  in  the  prosecution  of  their  wars,  to  which  no  parallel  can  be 
found  among  us.  In  fact,  when  we  consider  the  peculiar  bitterness 
with  which  civil  wars  are  almost  invariably  waged,  we  may  justly 
boast  of  the  manner  in  which  the  United  States  have  carried  on  the 
contest. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  prevent  the  lawless  acts  of 
stragglers  and  deserters,  or  the  occasional  unwarrantable  proceed 
ings  of  subordinates  on  distant  stations;  but  I  do  not  believe  there 
is,  in  all  history,  the  record  of  a  civil  war  of  such  gigantic  dimensions 
where  so  little  has  been  done  in  the  spirit  of  vindictiveness  as  in  this 
war,  by  the  government  and  commanders  of  the  United  States  ;  and 
this  notwithstanding  the  provocation  given  by  the  rebel  government 
by  assuming  the  responsibility  of  wretches  like  Quantrell,  refusing 
quarter  to  colored  troops,  and  scourging  and  selling  into  slavery  free 
colored  men  from  the  North  who  fell  into  their  hands,  by  covering  the 
sea  with  pirates,  refusing  a  just  exchange  of  prisoners,  while  they 
crowd  their  armies  with  paroled  prisoners  not  exchanged,  and  starv 
ing  prisoners  of  war  to  death. 


6 1  o  A  ME  RICA  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

In  the  next  place,  if  there  are  any  present,  who  believe,  that,  in  ad 
dition  to  the  effect  of  the  military  operations  of  the  war,  the  confisca 
tion  acts  and  emancipation  proclamations  have  embittered  the  Rebels 
beyond  the  possibility  of  reconciliation,  I  would  request  them  to  reflect 
that  the  tone  of  the  Rebel  leaders  and  Rebel  press  was  just  as  bitter 
in  the  first  months  of  the  war,  nay,  before  a  gun  was  fired,  as  it  is 
now.  There  were  speeches  made  in  Congress  in  the  very  last  session 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  rebellion,  so  ferocious  as  to  show  that  their 
authors  were  under  the  influence  of  a  real  frenzy. 

At  the  present  day,  if  there  is  any  discrimination  made  by  the  Con 
federate  press  in  the  affected  scorn,  hatred,  and  contumely  with  which 
every  shade  of  opinion  and  sentiment  in  the  loyal  states  is  treated, 
the  bitterest  contempt  is  bestowed  upon  those  at  the  North  who  still 
speak  the  language  of  compromise,  and  who  condemn  those  measures 
of  the  administration  which  are  alleged  to  have  rendered  the  return  of 
peace  hopeless. 

No,  my  friends,  that  gracious  providence  which  overrules  all  things 
for  the  best,  "  from  seeming  evil  still  educing  good,"  has  so  constituted 
our  natures,  that  the  violent  excitement  of  the  passions  in  one  direction 
is  generally  followed  by  a  reaction  in  an  opposite  direction,  and  the 
sooner  for  the  violence.  If  it  were  not  so,  if  injuries  inflicted  and 
retaliated  of  necessity  led  to  new  retaliations,  with  forever  accumulat 
ing  compound  interest  of  revenge,  then  the  world,  thousands  of  years 
ago,  would  have  been  turned  into  an  earthly  hell,  and  the  nations  of 
the  earth  would  have  been  resolved  into  clans  of  furies  and  demons, 
each  forever  warring  with  his  neighbor.  But  it  is  not  so;  all  history 
teaches  a  different  lesson.  The  wars  of  the  Roses  in  England  lasted 
an  entire  generation,  from  the  battle  of  St.  Albans  in  1455  to  that  of 
Bosworth  Field  in  1485.  Speaking  of  the  former,  Hume  says:  "This 
was  the  first  blood  spilt  in  that  fatal  quarrel,  which  was  not  finished 
in  less  than  a  course  of  thirty  }Tears;  which  was  signalized  by  twelve 
pitched  battles;  which  opened  a  scene  of  extraordinary  fierceness  and 
cruelty;  is  computed  to  have  cost  the  lives  of  eighty  princes  of  the 
blood;  and  almost  entirely  annihilated  the  ancient  nobility  of  England. 
The  strong  attachments  which,  at  that  time,  men  of  the  same  kindred 
bore  to  each  other,  and  the  vindictive  spirit  which  was  considered  a 
point  of  honor,  rendered  the  great  families  implacable  in  their  resent 
ments,  and  widened  every  moment  the  breach  between  the  parties." 
Such  was  the  state  of  things  in  England  under  which  an  entire  genera 
tion  ^rew  up;  but  when  Henry  VII.,  in  whom  the  titles  of  the  two 
houses  were  united,  went  up  to  London  after  the  battle  of  Bosworih 
Field,  to  mount  the  throne,  he  was  everywhere  received  with  joyous 
acclamations,  "as  one  ordained  and  sent  from  heaven  to  put  an  end 
to  the  dissensions  !>  which  had  so  long  afflicted  the  country. 

The  great  rebellion  in  England  of  the  seventeenth  century,  after 
long  and  angry  premonitions,  may  be  said  to  have  begun  with  the 


EDWARD  EVERETT.  61 1 

calling  of  the  Long  Parliament  in  1640,  and  to  have  ended  with  the 
return  of  Charles  II.,  in  1660;  twenty  years  of  discord,  conflict,  and 
civil  war;  of  confiscation,  plunder,  havoc;  a  proud  hereditary  peerage 
trampled  in  the  dust;  a  national  church  overturned,  its  clergy  beg 
gared,  its  most  eminent  prelate  put  to  death;  a  military  despotism 
established  on  the  ruins  of  a  monarchy  which  had  subsisted  seven 
hundred  years,  and  the  legitimate  sovereign  brought  to  the  block;  the 
great  families  which  adhered  to  the  king  proscribed,  impoverished, 
ruined;  prisoners  of  war — a  fate  worse  than  starvation  in  Libby — sold 
to  slavery  in  the  West  Indies;  in  a  word,  everything  that  can  embitter 
and  madden  contending  factions.  Such  was  the  state  of  things  for 
twenty  years;  and  yet,  by  no  gentle  transition,  but  suddenly,  and 
"when  the  restoration  of  affairs  appeared  most  hopeless,"  the  son  of 
the  beheaded  sovereign  was  brought  back  to  his  father's  blood-stained 
throne,  with  such  "unexpressible  and  universal  joy  "  as  led  the  merry 
monarch  to  exclaim"  he  doubted  it  had  been  his  own  fault  he  had  been 
absent  so  long,  for  he  saw  nobody  who  did  not  protest  he  had  ever 
wished  for  his  return."  "  In  this  wonderful  manner,"  says  Clarendon, 
"and  with  this  incredible  expedition,  did  God  put  an  end  to  a  rebel 
lion  that  had  raged  for  twenty  years,  and  had  been  carried  on  with  all 
the  horrid  circumstances  of  murder,  devastation,  and  parricide,  that 
fire  and  sword  in  the  hands  of  the  most  wicked  men  in  the  world  "  (it 
is  a  royalist  that  is  speaking)  "could  be  instruments  of,  almost  to  the 
desolation  of  two  kingdoms,  and  the  exceeding  defacing  and  deform 
ing  of  the  third.  ...  By  these  remarkable  steps  did  the  merciful 
hand  of  God,  in  this  short  space  of  time,  not  only  bind  up  and  heal  all 
Ihose  wounds,  but  even  made  the  scar  as  undiscernible  as,  in  respect 
of  the  deepness,  was  possible,  which  was  a  glorious  addition  to  the 
deliverance." 

In  German v,  the  wars  of  the  Reformation  and  of  Charles  V.  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  the  Thirty  Years'  War  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  Seven  Years'"  War  in  the' eighteenth  century,  not  to  speak  of  other 
less  celebrated  contests,  entailed  upon  that  country  all  the  miseries  of 
intestine  strife  for  more  than  three  centuries.  At  the  close  of  the 
last  named  war, — which  was  the  shortest  of  all  and  waged  in  the  most 
civilized  age, — "an  officer,"  says  Archenholz,  "rode  through  seven 
villages  in  Hesse,  and  found  in  them  but  one  human  being."  More 
than  three  hundred  principalities,  comprehended  in  the  empire,  ferment 
ed  with  the  fierce  passions  of  proud  and  petty  s-ates;  at  the  commence 
ment  of  this  period  the  castles  of  robber  counts  frowned  upon  every 
hill-top  ;  a  dreadful  secret  tribunal,  whose  seat  no  one  knew,  whose 
power  none  could  escape,  froze  the  hearts  of  men  with  terror  through 
out  the  land:  religious  hatred  mingled  its  bitter  poison  in  the  seething 
caldron  of  provincial  animosity;  but  of  all  these  deadly  enmities  be 
tween  th<"  states  of  Germany  scarcely  the  memory  remains.  There 
are  controversies  in  that  country,  at  the  present  day,  but  they  grow 


612  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

mainly  out  of  the  rivalry  of  the  two  leading  powers.  There  is  no 
country  hi  the  world  in  which  the  sentiment  of  national  brotherhood  is 
stronger. 

In  Italy,  on  the  breaking  up  of  the  Roman  Empire,  society  might 
be  said  to  be  resolved  into  its  original  elements, — into  hostile  atoms, 
whose  only  movement  was  that  of  mutual  repulsion.  Ruthless  bar 
barians  had  destroyed  the  bid  organizations,  and  covered  the  land 
with  a  merciless  feudalism.  As  the  new  civilization  grew  up,  under 
the  wing  of  the  Church,  the  noble  families  and  the  walled  towns  Jell 
madly  into  conflict  with  each  other;  the  secular  feud  of  Pope  and  Em 
peror  scourged  the  land;  province  against  province,  city  against  city, 
street  against  street,  waged  remorseless  war  with  each  other  from  father 
toson,\iil  Dante  was  able  to  fill  his  imaginary  hell  with  the  real  de 
mons  of  Italian  history.  So  ferocious  had  the  factions  become,  that 
the  great  poet-exile  himself,  the  glory  of  his  native  city  and  of  his 
n  itive  language,  was,  by  a  decree  of  the  municipality,  condemned  to 
b-  burned  alive  if  found  in  the  city  of  Florence.  But  these  deadly 
feuds  and  hatreds  yielded  to  political  influences,  as  the  hostile  cities 
were  grouped  into  states  under  stable  governments;  the  lingering 
traditions  of  the  ancient  animosities  gradually  died  away,  and  now 
Tuscan  and  Lombard,  Sardinian  and  Neapolitan,  as  if  to  shame  the 
degenerate  sons  of  America,  are  joining  in  one  cry  for  a  united  Italy. 

In  France,  not  to  go  back  to  the  civil  wars  of  the  League  in  the  six 
teenth  century  and  of  the  Fronde  in  the  seventeenth;  not  to  speak  of 
the  dreadful  scenes  throughout  the  kingdom  which  followed  the  revo 
cation  of  the  edict  of  Nantes;  we  have,  in  the  great  revolution  which 
commenced  at  the  close  of  the  last  century,  seen  the  bloodhounds  of 
civil  strife  let  loose  as  rarely  before  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The 
reign  of  terror  established  at  Paris  stretched  its  bloody  Briarean  arms 
to  every  city  and  village  in  the  land;  and  if  the  most  deadly  feuds 
v/hich  ever  divided  a  people  had  the  power  to  cause  permanent  aliena 
tion  and  hatred,  this  surely  was  the  occasion.  But  far  otherwise  the 
fact.  In  seven  years  from  the  fall  of  Robespierre,  the  strong  arm  of 
fche  youthful  conqueror  brought  order  out  of  this  chaos  of  crime  and 
woe;  Jacobins  whose  hands  were  scarcely  cleansed  from  the  best 
blood  of  France  met  the  returning  emigrants;  whose  estates  they  had 
confiscated  and  whose  kindred  they  had  dragged  to  the  guillotine,  in 
the  Imperial  ante-chambers;  and  when,  after  another  turn  of  the  wheel 
of  fortune,  Louis  XVIII.  was  restored  to  his  throne,  he  took  the  regi 
cide  Fouche,  who  had  voted  for  his  brother's  death,  to  his  cabinet  and 
confidence. 

The  people  of  loyal  America  will  never  ask  you,  sir,  to  take  to  your 
confidence  or  admit  again  to  share  in  the  government  the  hard-hearted 
men  whose  cruel  lust  of  power  has  brought  this  desolating  war  upon 
the  land,  but  there  is  no  personal  bitterness  felt  even  against  them. 
They  may  live,  if  they  can  bear  to  live  after  wantonly  causing  the 


EDWARD  EVERETT.  613 

death  of  so  many  of  their  fellow-men;  they  may  live  in  safe  obscurity 
beneath  the  shelter  of  the  government  they  have  sought  to  overthrow, 
or  they  may  fly  to  the  projection  of  the  governments  of  Europe, — some 
of  them  are  already  there  seeking,  happily  in  vain,  to  obtain  the  aid 
of  foreign  power  in  furtherance  of  their  own  treason.  There  let  them 
stay.  The  humblest  dead  soldier,  tha.t  lies  cold  and  stiff  in  his  grave 
before  us,  is  an  object  of  envy  beneath  the  clods  that  cover  him,  in 
comparison  with  the  living  man,  I  care  not  with  what  trumpery  cre 
dentials  he  may  be  furnished,  who  is  willing  to  grovel  at  the  foot  of  a 
foreign  throne  for  assistance  in  compassing  the  ruin  of  his  country. 

Hut  the  hour  is  coming  and  now  is,  when  the  power  of  the  leaders 
of  the  Rebellion  to  delude  and  inflame  must  cease.  There  is  no  bit 
terness  on  the  part  of  the  masses.  The  people  of  the  South  are  not 
going  to  wage  an  e'ernal  war  for  the  wretched  pretexts  by  which  this 
rebellion  is  sought  to  be  justified.  The  bonds  that  unite  us  as  one 
people, — a  subs  tan  tin  I  community  of  origin,  language,  belief,  and  law 
(the  four  great  ties  that  hold  the  societies  of  men  together);  common 
national  and  political  interests;  a  common  history;  a  common  pride  in 
a  glorious  ancestry;  a  common  interest  in  this  great  heritage  of  bless 
ings;  the  very  geographical  features  of  the  country;  the  mighty  rivers 
that  cross  the  lines  of  climate,  and  thus  facilitate  the  interchange  of 
natural  and  industrial  products,  while  the  wonder-working  arm  of  the 
engineer  has  levelled  the  mountain-walls  which  separate  the  East  and 
the  West,  compelling  your  own  Alleghanies,  my  Maryland  and  Perfn- 
sylvania  friends,  to  open  wide  their  everlasting  doors  to  the  char 
iot  wheels  of  traffic  and  travel, — these  bonds  of  union  are  of  perennial 
force  and  energy,  while  the  causes  of  alienation  are  imaginary,  facti 
tious,  and  transient.  The  heart  of  the  people,  North  and  South,  is  for 
union.  Indications,  too  plain  to  be  mistaken,  announce  the  fact, 
both  in  the  East  and  the  West  of  the  states  in  rebellion.  In  North 
Carolina  and  Arkansas  the  fatal  charm  at  length  is  broken.  At  Ra 
leigh  and  Little  Rock  the  lips  of  honest  and  brave  men  are  unsealed, 
and  an  independent  press  is  unlimbering  its  artillery.  When  its  rifled 
cannon  shall  begin  to  roar,  the  hosts  of  treasonable  sophistry,  the  mad 
delusions  of  the  day,  will  fly  like  the  rebel  army  through  the  passes  of 
yonder  mountain.  The  weary  masses  of  the  people  are  yearning  to 
see  the  dear  old  flag  again  floating  upon  their  capitols,  and  they  sigh 
for  the  return  of  the  peace,  prosperity,  and  happiness  which  they 
enjoyed  under  a  government  whose.power  was  felt  only  in  its  bless 
ings. 

And  now,  friends,  fellow-citizens  of  Gettysburg  and  Pennsylvania, 
and  you  from  remoter  states,  let  me  again,  as  we  part,  invoke  your 
benediction  on  these  honored  graves.  You  feel,  though  the  occasion 
is  mournful,  that  it  is  good  to  be  here.  You  feel  that  it  was  greatly 
auspicious  for  the  cause  of  the  country,  that  the  men  of  the  East  and 
the  men  of  the  West,  the  men  of  nineteen  sister  states,  stood  side  by 


6 1 4  A  Ml'.  RICA  A*  y  *X  / 'A7<;  7Y.VJ/. 

side,  on  the  perilous  ridges  of  the  battle.  You  now  fee!  it  a  new  bond 
of  union,  that  they  "shall  lie  side  by  side,  till  a  clarion,  louder  than  that 
which  marshalled  them  to  the  combat,  shall  awake  their  slumbers. 
God  bless  the  Union;  it  is  dearer  to  us  for  the  blood  of  the  brave  men 
which  has  been  shed  in  its  defence.  The  spots  on  which  they  stood 
and  fell;  these  pleasant  heights;  the  fertile  plain  beneath  them;  the 
thriving  village  whose  streets  so  lately  rang  with  the  strange  din  of 
war;  the  fields  beyond  the  ridge,  where  the  noble  Reynolds  held  the 
advancing  foe  at  bay,  and,  while  he  gave  up  his  own  life,  assured  by 
his  forethought  and  self-sacrifice  the  triumph  of  the  two  succeeding 
days;  the  little  streams  which  winds  through  the  hills,  on  whose  banks 
in  after  time  the  wondering  ploughman  will  turn  up,  with  the  rude 
weapons  of  savage  warfare,  the  fearful  missiles  of  modern  artillery; 
Seminary  Ridge,  the  Peach  Orchard,  Cemetery,  Gulp  and  Wolf  Hill, 
Round  Top,  Little  Round  Top — humble  names,  henceforward  dear 
and  famous,  no  lapse  of  time,  no  distance  of  space,  shall  cause  you  to 
be  forgotten.  "The  whole  earth."  ;.aid  Pericles,  as  he  stood  over  the 
remains  of  his  fellow-citizens,  who  h;:ii  fallen  in  the  first  year  of  the 
Peloponnesian  War,  "  the  whole  earth  U  the  sepulchre  of  illustrious 
men."  All  time,  he  might  have  added,  is  the  millennium  of  their 
glory.  Surely  I  would  do  no  in  justice  to  the  other  noble  achievements 
of  the  war,  which  have  reflected  such  honor  on  both  arms  of  the  ser 
vice, rand  have  entitled  the  armies  and  the  navy  of  the  United  States, 
their  officers  and  men,  to  the  warmest  thanks  and  the  richest  rewards 
which  a  grateful  people  can  pay.  But  they,  I  am  sure,  will  join  us  in 
saying,  as  we  bid  farewell  to  the  dust  of  these  inartyr  heroes,  that 
wheresoever  throughout  the  civilized  world  the  accounts  of  this  great 
warfare  are  read,  and  down  to  the  latest  period  of  recorded  time,  in 
the  glorious  annals  of  our  common  country  there  will  be  no  brighter 
page  than  that  which  relates  the  battles  of  Gettysburg. 


SPEECH  AT  GETTYSBURG. 

ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 
November  19,  1863. 

Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth  upon  this 
continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  pro 
position  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  Now  we  are  engaged  in  a 
great  civil  wrar,  testing  whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived 
and  so  dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field 
of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field  as  a 
final  resting-place  for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation 
might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 


CARL    SCHURZ.  615 

Bu:  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate,  we 
cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who 
:;irug,jied  here,  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  power  to  add  or  dc- 
iract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember,  what  we  say 
here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the  liv 
ing,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who 
(ought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us'to  be 
here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us,  that  from  these 
honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they 
gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion;  that  we  here  highly  resolve 
that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain;  that  this  nation,  under 
God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the 
earth. 


THE  TREASON  OF  SLAVERY. 
CARL  SCHURZ. 

Brooklyn,   October  7,  1864. 

MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  FELLOW-CITIZENS- — To  ascribe  great  effects  to 
small,  far-fetched,  and  merely  incidental  causes,  is  a  manner  of  ex 
plaining  historical  events  which  weak  minds  pass  off,  and  weaker 
minds  take,  as  an  evidence  of  superior  sagacity.  Even  in  those  cases 
where  individuals  are  powerful  enough  to  produce  great  commotions 
on  their  own  private  motives,  such  an  historical  theory  is  but  rarely 
admissible;  but  where  a  nation  acts  upon  the  impulses  of  the  popular 
heart  it  is  never  so  There  are  those  who  find  the  cause  of  the  down 
fall  of  the  Roman  republic  in  the  financial  embarrassments  of  some  of 
her  ambitious  men.  There  are  those  who  find  the  origin  of  the 
gre.it  religious  reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  in  the  desire  of 
some  German  ecclesiastics  to  get  married.  There  are  those  who  tell 
us  that  the  French  Revolution  would  never  have  happened  but  for  the 
secret  organization  of  the  Freemasons.  Such  ridiculous  exhibitions  of 
human  ingenuity  might  amuse  us  had  they  not  frequently  exercised  a 
most  dangerous  influence  upon  the  actions  of  large  classes  of  people; 
for  even  in  our  days  there  are  those  who  pretend  to  find  the  origin  of 
the  great  struggle  which  it  now  convulsing  this  country  in  a  few  anti- 
slavery  tracts  circulated  by  a  few  abolitionists  from  New  England;  and 
what  is  worse,  there  are  many  who  believe  it;  and  what  is  still  worse, 
there  are  many  who  are  prepared  to  act  upon  that  belief. 

True,  the  first  origin  of  great  developments  is  sometimes  appar 
ently  small,  but  only  apparently  so.  It  requires  an  acorn  fallen  from 
an  oak-tree  to  make  another  oak  tree  grow  Ever  so  large  a  quantity 


616  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

of  mustard-seed  will  never  do  it.  And  even  an  acorn  will  not,  if  it 
falls  upon  a  rock. 

In  order  to  make  clear  to  our  minds  the  true  nature  of  ihe  struggle 
in  which  we  are  engaged,  you  must  suffer  me  to  look  back  upon  the 
original  composition  of  American  society.  The  men  who  established 
the  first  settlements  in  New  England  were  almost  all  plebeians — true 
children  of  the  people.  The}''  had  not  abandoned  their  old  homes 
merely  for  the  purpose  of  seeking  in  the  wilds  of  the  new  world  a 
material  fortune,  which  the  old  world  had  refused  them.  They  were 
the  earnest  champions  of  a  principle,  and  they  left  their  native  shores 
because  there  that  principle  was  persecuted  and  oppressed.  They 
sought  and  found  upon  the  rocky  soil  of  New  England  a  place  where 
they  could  conform  their  social  condition  to  their  religions  belief. 
Equal  in  their  origin  and  social  standing,  inspired  by  the  same  mo 
tives,  engaged  with  equal  interest  in  the  same  enterprise,  pur 
suing  the  same  ends,  and  sharing  the  same  fortunes  —  their 
instincts,  however  crudely  developed,  were  necessarily  all  demo 
cratic.  Their  natural  tendency  was  not  to  produce  in  the  new 
world  a  social  inequality,  which  in  the  old  world  had  heavily  weighed 
upon  them  but  had  never  existed  among  themselves.  Every  institu 
tion  they  founded  had  in  view  the  equality  of  the  citizens,  and  by  orig 
inating  a  system  of  public  education  for  all  the  children  of  the  people, 
they  endeavored  to  perpetuate  that  equality  which  originally  was  the 
characteristic  feature  of  their  society.  It  is  true,  there  was  a  great  va 
riety  in  their  occupations:  agriculture,  handicraft,  commerce,  industry, 
learned  professions;  but  all  these  occupations  being  equally  respecta 
ble,  they  produced  no  permanent  distinctions  in  society;  for,  what  one 
might  be,  another  might  become.  Equality,  and  the  democratic  spirit 
arising  from  it,  was  the  basis  of  their  whole  social  and  political  organ 
ization.  These  tendencies  they  and  their  descendants  carried  all  over 
the  Northern  States,  and  although  the  Puritans  gradually  dropped 
most  of  their  religious  and  social  peculiarities,  although  they,  as  a 
race,  became  largely  intermingled  with  other  classes  of  people,  yet 
those  original  tendencies  pervaded  the  whole  social  and  political  sys 
tem  as  a  powerful  leaven,  and  thus  determined  the  character  of  North 
ern  society  and  civilization. 

This  is  the  spirit  to  which  the  North  owes  her  thrift  and  industry, 
her  education,  her  liberty,  her  progressive  enterprise,  her  prosperity, 
and  her  greatness. 

It  was  not  so  with  the  original  settlers  of  the  Southern  country,  es 
pecially  Virginia.  Some  of  them  were  scions  of  the  noble  houses  of 
England;  they  belonged  to  the  privileged  class  at  home.  They  went 
to  the  new  country,  those  that  were  rich  and  powerful,  in  order  to  in 
crease  their  wealth  and  power,  and  those  that  were  poor  and  insignifi 
cant,  in  order  to  gain  in  the  new  world  what  they  had  been  vainly 
striving  to  find  in  the  old.  All  were  seeking  new  fortunes  upon  a  new 


CARL    SCIIUKZ.  617 

field  of  action.  Such  were  the  cavaliers;  and  those  who  followed 
them  were  not  permitted  to  forget  here  the  difference  of  station  which 
had  separated  them  from  their  patrons  at  home.  The  aristocratic 
gradations  of  European  society,  naturally  modified  by  the  necessities 
of  American  life,  were  as  much  as  possible  imitated,  or  rather  retained, 
and  the  general  tendency  of  things  was  more  favorable  to  the  preser« 
vation  than  to  the  abolition  of  social  distinctions.  This  manifested 
itself  clearly  in  the  business  enterprises  of  the  new  world  aristocracy. 
Large  landed  estates  were  formed,  the  cultivation  of  which  required 
the  labor  of  a  vast  number  of  subordinates.  Various  ways  were  de 
vised  in  which  this  labor  could  be  made  obligatory;  a  peculiar  system 
of  white  serfdom  was  attempted,  and  everything  seemed  to  concur  in 
making  the  superiority  of  the  few  over  the  many  an  hereditary  and 
permanent  institution.  This  tendency  fixed  the  character  of  Southern 
society  and  civilization.  This  is  the  spirit  to  which  the  South  owes 
her  domestic  tyranny,  her  lack  of  enterprise,  the  poverty  and  ignor 
ance  of  her  masses,  the  slowness  of  her  progress. 

It  is  probable — nay.  it  is  almost  certain — that  the  aristocratic  char 
acter  of  Southern  society  would  have  been  unable  to  maintain  itself, 
and  to  impress  its  mark  permanently  upon  their  political  institutions, 
had  not  the  importation  of  a  class  of  person,  of  whom  it  was  taken 
for  granted  that  they  had  to  labor,  riot  for  themselves,  but  for  others, 
furnished  a  welcome  expedient. 

Hut  for  the  introduction  of  negro  slavery,  the  aristocratic  land 
holders  of  the  South  would  not  have  succeeded  in  fastening  upon  any 
class  of  people  the  burden  of  obligatory  labor;  aristocracy  would  have 
lost  its  foundation,  and  been  obliged  to  yield  to  the  democratic  spirit 
natural  to  the  inhabitants  of  a  new  country.  But  in  negro  slavery  it 
found  a  congenial  element;  slavery  was  the  soil  which  nourished  and 
fostered  and  sustained  the  roots  of  aristocracy  against  the  democratic 
breeze. 

I  may  remark  here,  by  the  way,  that  by  tracing  the  aristocratic 
tendency  of  Southern  society  back  to  the  cavaliers  who  founded  the 
settlements  in  Virginia,  I  do  not  mean  to  admit  the  ridiculous  claim  of 
the  latter-day  chivalry,  that  they  are  a  superior  race  of  people,  and 
have  all  sorts  of  noble  blood  in  their  veins.  Society  became  some 
what  mixed,  and  among  the  proudest  slave-barons  of  to-day,  there  are 
certainly  a  good  many  descendants  of  men  who,  if  England  had  to 
dispose  of  them  again,  would  be  sent  to  Botany  Bay  instead  of  Vir 
ginia,  while  other  Southern  nobles  may  run  up  their  pedigree  to  some 
speculative  Yankee  pedlar. 

What  I  mean  to  say  is,  that  the  character  of  the  original  settlers  de 
termined  the  character  of  the  social  and  political  institutions,  while 
subsequently  these  institutions  in  their  turn  determined  the  character 
of  the  inhabitants.  I  am  also  well  aware  that  political  doctrines  were 
cultivated  in  the  two  groups  of  colonies  aud  states  which  apparently 


6iS  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

contradict  this  representation,  but  only  apparently,  for  in  democracies 
practice  frequently  goes  ahead  of  theory,  while  in  aristocracies  fre 
quently  theories  are  cherished,  the  full  realization  of  which  would 
greatly  disturb  the  society  which  cherishes  them. 

Thus  we  trace  in  the  first  stages  of  American  history  two  distinct 
currents,  one  running  in  the  direction  of  social  and  political  equality, 
and  the  other  in  the  direction  of  permanent  social  and  political  distinc 
tions — the  one  essentially  democratic,  the  other  essentially  aristo 
cratic.  These  currents  were  running  smoothly  side  by  side  as  long  as 
they  were  kept  asunder  by  the  separate  colonial  governments.  But 
they  became  directly  antagonistic  as  soon  as,  by  the  organization  of 
the  different  colonies  into  one  republic,  a  field  of  common  problems 
was  opened  to  them  where  they  had  to  meet.  Then  the  question 
arose,  which  of  the  two  currents  should  determine  the  character  of  the 
future  development  of  the  American  republic  ? — and  this  question, 
meanwhile  expanded  to  gigantic  dimensions,  is  the  one  we  have  been 
so  warmly  discussing  these  forty  cr  fifty  years,  and  which  we  are  now 
about  to  decide. 

Pardon  me  for  having  commenced  my  speech  with  the  pilgrim 
fathers  and  the  first  settlers  of  Virginia.  I  desired  to  show  that  Wil 
liam  Lloyd  Garrison  and  Gerrit  Smith  are  not  altogether  responsible 
for  the  great  rebellion.  And  if  you  give  me  leave  I  will  proceed  to 
show  that  the  Republican  party  is  not  altogether  responsible  for  that 
event  either.  I  may  then  arrive  at  some  conclusions  having  a  direct 
bearing  upon  the  burning  questions  we  have  at  present  to  solve. 

The  struggle  against  Great  Britain  commenced,  and  the  two  great 
elements,  the  democratic  and  aristocratic,  went  harmoniously  together. 
They  had  one  great  common  problem  to  solve — that  was  the  problem 
of  the  first  historical  period  of  the  American  people,  the  achievement 
of  political  independence,  the  foundation  of  the  new  American  nation 
ality,  and  the  defence  of  that  incipient  nationality  against  its  enemies 
abroad.  While  struggling  together  for  that  common  object,  they  had 
every  conceivable  inducement  for  going  hand  in  hand.  The  natural 
antagonism  has  as  yet  but  imperfectly  disclosed  itself.  And,  indeed, 
at  that  time,  there  was  another  possibility  of  permanently  harmoniz 
ing  the  conflicting  elements.  „ 

The  spirit  of  the  leaders,  as  well  as  the  instincts  of  the  mas 
ses,  had  risen  above  the  range  of  ordinary  feelings.  The  phil 
osophy  of  the  eighteenth  century  had  made  the  statesmen  of  the 
Revolution  anti-slavery  men  on  principle.  The  elevation  of  mind 
and  the  generous  emotions  nourished  by  that  great  struggle 
for  liberty  had  confirmed  them  in  their  faith.  They  had  expanded 
their  desire  for  colonial  independence  into  a  broad  assertion  of 
the  rights  of  human  nature.  From  such  convictions  and  impulses 
grew  that  grand  platform  of  human  liberty  and  equality — the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence.  All  their  public  acts  relating  to  the  subject 


CARL    SL'IIURZ.  619 

were  based  upon  the  conviction  that  the  abnormity  of  slavery  was  to 
be  put  upon  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  Hence  the  great  ordi 
nance  of  1787,  and  the  legislation  about  the  slave  trade.  And,  indeed, 
had  that  spirit  continued  to  govern  the  destinies  of  this  Republic, 
slavery  would  have  been  gradually  abolished,  the  foundations  of  the 
aristocratic  tendency  would  have  been  taken  away,  and  the  future  de 
velopment  of  the  country  would  have  been  placed  upon  the  solid  and 
fertile  ground  of  social  and  political  harmony  embodied  in  truly  demo 
cratic  institutions. 

But  this  healthy  development  was  suddenly  interfered  with — "by 
the  Abolutionists" — our  opponents  will  say.  No,  not  by  the  Aboli 
tionists,  for  the  general  abolition  spirit  of  that  period  had  brought 
slavery  near  its  death.  No,  it  was  interfered  with  by  the  invention  of 
the1  cotton-gin;  and,  strange  enough,  a  progress  in  manufacturing  in 
dustry  worked  a  most  deplorable  reaction  in  moral  and  political  ideas. 
Slavery,  drooping  in  most  of  the  states,  became  suddenly  profitable, 
and  the  sordid  greediness  of  gain  crushed  down  in  a  great  many  hearts 
the  love  of  principle.  Slavery,  instead  of  being  an  evil,  a  scourge,  and 
a  disgrace,  became  suddenly. a  great,  economical,  moral,  and  political 
blessing.  New  theories  of  government  sprang  out  of  this  economical 
revolution,  and  the  same  system  of  social  organization,  which,  but  a 
short  time  before,  had  been  the  foulest  blot  on  the  American  name, 
was  suddenly  discovered  to  be  the  corner-stone  of  democratic  institu 
tions.  Even  ministers  of  Christianity  joined  in  the  frantic  dance 
around  the  golden  calf,  and  anointed  the  idol  with  the  sanction  of  divine 
origin. 

Such  was  the  interference  which  prevented  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
Then  -the  aristocratic  character  of  Southern  society  was  developed  to 
a  stronger  and  more  obnoxious  form.  The  old  Cavalier  element  lost 
most  of  its  best  attributes;  but  its  worst  impulses  found  a  congenial 
institution  to  feed  upon,  and  out  of  the  Cavalier  grew  the  Slave-Lord. 
The  struggle  between  the  two  antagonistic  elements  began  now  in 
earnest,  and  out  of  it  grew  the  germs  of  the  Rebellion  as  an  almost 
inevitable  consequence. 

Permit  me  to  show  the  most  characteristic  features  of  this  strange 
history.  Slavery,  finding  itself  condemned  by  the  universal  opinion 
of  mankind,  wanted  power  in  order  to  stand  against  so  formidable  an 
adversary.  There  was  method  in  its  proceedings.  First  it  consoli 
dated  itself  at  home.  To  this  end  it  planted  itself  upon  the  doctrine 
of  state-rights,  in  the  Southern  acceptation  of  the  word.  I  will  call  it 
the  doctrine  of  Slave-States-Rights,  for  the  rights  of  the  free  states  was 
a  thing  which  the  doctrine  did  not  include.  It  did  this  in  order  to  pro 
tect  itself  from  outside  interference  while  adapting  the  laws  and  insti 
tutions  of  the  several  slave  slates  completelv  to  its  interests  and  aspi 
re  ti  >ns.  Whenever  the  rights  of  man,  and  the  fundamental  liberties 
o(  the  people — free  speech,  free  press,  trial  by  jury,  writ  of  habeas 


620  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

X 

corpus — came  into  conflict  with  the  ruling  interest,  they  were,  in  the 
slave  states,  most  unceremoniously  ovei  ridden.  The  possession  of 
slaves  became  an  indispensable  qualification  for  office — in  some  states 
by  law,  in  others  by  custom.  The  exceptions  were  rare.  The  slave 
power  assumed  a  most  absolute  dictatorship,  which  gradually  absorbed 
all  the  guarantees  of  popular  liberty.  So  much  for  its  home  policy. 

But  it  did  not  stop  there.  Finding  that  the  democratic  element  of 
free-labor  society,  with  which  it  was  yoked  together,  by  the  national 
organization  of  this  Republic,  had  an  expansive  tendency,  and  was 
growing  stronger  every  day  out  of  all  proportion,  and  fearing  to  be 
crowded  out  and  overwhelmed  by  it,  the  slave  power  deemed  it  neces 
sary  either  to  control  or  to  suppress  that  element.  Its  states-righls 
doctrine  was  an  intrenched  position,  from  which  it  now  commenced 
making  aggressive  sallies.  Morbidly  sensitive  of  the  rights  of  its  own 
states,  it  asked  that  for  its  benefit  the  rights  of  the  people  of  the  free 
states  should  be  put  down;  it  imperiously  demanded  the  suppression 
of  anti-slavery  papers,  and  the  punishment  of  anti-slavery  speakers;  in 
some  cases  it  enforced  its  demand  by  arson  and  murder.  This  tendency 
brought  forth,  at  a  later  period,  the  most  flagrant  violation  of  the 
rights  of  the  free  slatesy-the  monstrous  fugitive  slave-law,  which,  set 
ting  aside  trial  by  jury  and  habeas  corpus,  demanded  the  rendition  of 
fugitives,  not  according  to  the  laws  and  forms  of  justice  prevailing  in 
the  states  where  the  fugitives  were  caught,  but  by  a  rule  of  summary 
and  arbitrary  proceedings  dictated  to  Congress  by  the  slave  power, 
and  by  Congress,  thus  ruled,  to  the  people.  These  proceedings  made 
it  necessary  for  the  people  of  the  North  to  stand  up  in  defence  of 
the  rights  of  their  own  states.  Thus  the  slave  power,  while  insisting 
upon  state  rights  for  itself,  endeavored  to  accumulate  power  in  its 
own  hands  to  control  the  rest  of  the  states  according  to  its  interests. 

But  the  accumulation  of  power  was  not  complete.  The  slave  power 
wanted  to  rule  the  whole  machinery,  not  only  of  its  own  states,  but 
of  the  general  government  also,  for  its  own  purposes.  It  wanted  to 
adapt  the  whole  of  our  national  institutions  to  its  own  interests.  It 
wanted  a  permanent  controlling  influence  in  our  national  legislature, 
Hence  its  cry  for  a  "  balance  of  power,"  which  meant  either  a  per 
manent  majority  in  Congress,  or,  if  that  could  not  be  had,  a  vote 
strong  enough  to  constitute  a  power  of  veto  on  all  legislative  acts. 
Hence  its  opposition  to  the  admission  of  new  free  states;  hence  its  de 
mand  that  slavery  should  take  possession  of  all  the  national  territories, 
out  of  which  new  slave  states  might  be  formed.  In  this  manner 
the  slave  power  worked  steadily  for  the  conquest  of  supreme  and  ab 
solute  control  of  our  national  affairs;  and  had  it  succeeded,  this  repub 
lic  would  now  lie  at  its  feet  bound  hand  and  foot,  and  the  aristocratic- 
element  in  this  country  would  have  achieved  one  of  the  strangest  vic 
tories  over  the  progressive  spirit  of  this  age. 

It  must  be  admitted,  the  slave  power  carried  out   its  policy  with 


CARL    SCIIURZ.  621 

such  consummate  acuteness,  that  Machiavelli  himself,  if  he  lived  to 
day,  might  profit  from  its  teachings.  The  South  was  weak,  the 
North  was  strong,  but  the  South  was  united,  and  the  North  divided. 
The  slave  interest  held  the  balance  of  power  between  the  political 
parties  of  the  country.-  In  an  evil  hour — an  evil  hour,  indeed,  for  this 
republic — a  political  party  inaugurated  that  most  demoralizing,  that 
most  pernicious  principle,  that  to  the  victor  belong  the  spoils.  And 
the  slave  power  rose  up  and  said,  "  Only  to  him  will  I  give  these 
things  who  falls  down  and  worships  me."  And  they  fell  down  ?ml 
worshipped  in  turn,  but  the  "  Democratic"  party  worshipped  most. 
To  the  victors  belonged  the  spoils,  and  victory  with  the  spoils  could 
only  be  obtained  by  co-operation  with  an  untiring  subserviency  to  the 
sla^e  power. 

This  was  one  of  those  dark  periods  in  our  political  history  which 
may  send  a  blush  to  every  manly  cheek,  and  make  us  almost  doubt 
of  the  innate  nobility  of  human  nature.  The  face  of  a  democratic  re 
public  seemed  almost  decided  by  the  self-degradation  of  freemen. 
What  the  united  energy  of  the  slave  power  might  have  vainly  at 
tempted,  the  inexhaustible  obsequiousness  of  its  Northern  allies  would 
have  accomplished,  had  there  not  been  a  residue  of  virtue  in  the 
people. 

Bat  in  the  course  of  this  struggle  for  absolute  dominion,  the  slave 
power  showed  one  tendency  which  gave  it  an  entirely  new  aspect.  At 
the  time  when  it  had  intrenched  itself  in  its  doctrine  of  state  rights, 
and  was  about  to  try  its  strength  in  offensive  operations,  it  raised  the 
threat  of  separation,  secession,  disunion,  in  order  to  enforce  its  de 
mands.  And  that  cry  remained  ever  since  its  staple  threat ;  and,  fos 
tered  and  strengthened  by  Northern  obsequiousness,  it  became  its 
most  formidable  weapon.  What  did  this  cry  mean  ?  It  meant  this: 
"  If  you  will  not  permit  us  to  rule  this  nation,  we  are  determined  to 
ruin  it."  This  cry  was  raised  and  reiterated  again  and  again,  long 
before  you  heard  of  a  Republican  party.  Then  the  slave  power 
established  its  disloyal  character,  its  anti-national  tendency.  It  was 
then — mark  what  I  say — it  was  then  the  great  rebellion  began. 

The  slave  power,  which  formerly  had  been  only  the  adversary  of  an 
opposite  element  in  the  nation,  became  then  the  enemy  of  the  nation 
itself.  To  be  ruled  by  one  who  continually  threatened  to  murder  her 
— that  was  the  situation  of  the  American  Republic.  Then  the  Nor 
thern  people  had  to  struggle,  not  only  for  their  rights  and  liberties, 
their  dignity  and  prosperity,  but  in  struggling  against  the  pretensions 
of  the  slave  power  they  fought  for  the  life  of  American  nationality. 
By  one  of  the  most  singular  perversions  of  human  logic,  the  party  of 
tiie  slave  power  called  itself  the  National  party.  While  it  was  admit 
ted  in  the  North,  that  freedom  was  national  and  slavery  was  sectional, 
the  party  of  freedom  was  stigmatized  as  sectional,  the  party  of  slavery 
eulogized  as  national.  A  party,  the  main  body  of  which  continually 


622  A  ME  RICA  N  1  >,!  TRIO  TISM. 

"  •          >.'•     i\--.      "S" 

flourished  the  knife  of  the  assassin  over  the  head  of  the  naxion — that 
party  national !  A  truly  loyal  and  national  man  will  never  feel  tempted 
even  to  threaten  the  life  of  the  nation.  The  slave  power  disclosed  its 
enmity  to  the  nationality,  first  by  the  threat,  and  then  the  earnestness 
of  the  threat  by  the  attempt.  At  last,  when  under  Buchanan's  Admin 
istration  the  assumptions  and  usurpations  of  the  slave  power  culmina 
ted  in  the  Dred  Scott  and  Lecompton  policy,  the  people  of  the  North, 
the  democratic  element  of  the  country,  rose  up,  and  at  the  election  of 
1860  it  vindicated  its  liberties  and  its  manhood.  It  rescued  the  Repub 
lic  from  the  grasp  of  an  anti-democratic  us  well  as  an  anti-national 
power.  Then  the  second  great  period  of  the  history  of  the  American 
people  arrived  at  the  crisis  of  its  development.  The  first  had  solved 
the  problem  of  achieving  the  foundation  of  the  new  nationality  and 
defending  it  against  its  great  enemy  abroad;  the  problem  of  the  sec 
ond  is  to  maintain  the  American  nationality  by  defending  it  against  its 
great  enemy  at  home.  The  election  of  1860  was  a  notice  given  to  the 
slave  power  that  the  American  nation  meant  no  longer  to  live  in  cow 
ardly  fear  of  the  murderous  knife  pointed  at  its  heart  by  a  set  of  im 
perious  aristocrats,  but  that  it  meant  to  take  its  government  into  its 
own  hands. 

This  was  the  first  grand  uprising  of  the  democratic  spirit  of  the 
people  against  the  absolute  control  of  the  slave  power.  The  high 
handed  attempt  of  the  latter  to  force  the  people  to  surrender  the  attri 
butes  of  our  Government,  springing  from  the  Northern  spirit  of  equal 
ity,  to  the  Southern  spirit  of  aristocratic  dominion,  was  foiled,  and  the 
slave  power,  seeing  that  its  arrogated  privilege  to  rule  the  nation  was 
denied,  began  to  execute  its  threat  to  ruin  it  It  withdrew  at  once 
into  its  doctrine  of  slave-states-rights,  and,  carrying  it  to  the  criminal 
extent  of  secession,  struck  its  murderous  blow  at  the  life  of  the  nation. 
It  transferred  the  contest  from  the  forum  to  the  battle-field,  and  once 
more  Roundheads  and  Cavaliers,  Democracy  and  Aristocracy,  meet 
each  other  in  arms.  This  is  the  history  of  the  origin  of  this  revolu 
tion.  I  call  it  a  revolution,  for  it  is  a  rebellion  only  on  their  side,  it  is 
a  revolution  for  the  American  people.  This  is  the  true  character  of 
the  great  struggle  for  the  preservation  of  our  nationality,  a  struggle 
which  was  initiated,  not  when  the  first  gun  was  fired  upon  Fort  Sum- 
ter,  but  when  the  slave  aristocracy  uttered  the  first  threat  of  disunion, 
which  arrived  at  its  crisis  when  the  slave  aristocracy  failed  to  obtain 
complete  control  of  our  national  government,  and  struck  the  blow 
against  the  life  of  the  nation,  and  which  cannot  end  until  the  anti- 
national  spirit  is  extinguished  by  the  destruction  of  the  institution 
which  begot  and  fostered  it. 

I  have  led  you  through  this  long,  and  perhaps  tedious,  summary  of 
our  social  and  political  history  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that  our  pres 
ent  struggle  is  the  natural  outgrowth  of  an  antagonism  of  which  we  find 
the  germs  in  the  first  organization  of  American  society.  I  have  shown, 


CARL    SCIIURZ.  623 

also,  that  the  aristocratic  element,  after  having  identified  itself  with 
the  system  of  slavery,  acted  upon  the  command  of  its  necessities. 
Its  principal  crime  consisted  at  the  beginning,  and  consists  to-day,  in 
its  identifying  itself  with  slavery  instead  of  yielding  to  the  democratic 
principles  upon  which  a  healthy  national  organization  could  be  found- 
c  i.  But  remaining  faithful  to  slavery,  it  was  impelled  by  the  irresist 
ible  power  of  logic,  from  step  to  step,  until  at  last  it  landed  in  the  do 
main  of  high  treason.  Finding  slavery  endangered  by  public  opinion, 
it  was  natural  that  it  should  shut  itself  up  against  that  dangerous  influ 
ence.  But  being  yoked  together  in  a  common  national  organization  with 
the  threatening  influence  of  the  expansive  democratic  element,  it  was 
natural  that  it  should  endeavor  to  control  or  suppress  it  by  all  the  ex 
pedients  of  corruption  and  intimidation.  But  failing  in  this  finally, 
and  still  insisting  upon  the  perpetuation  of  slavery,  it  was  natural  that 
it  should  try  to  shut  itself  up  more  effectually — to  isolate  itself  com 
pletely,  by  breaking  up  the  national  organization  which  held  it  under 
an  influence  so  dangerous  to  its  existsnce.  Thus  slavery,  impelled  by 
its  necessities  from  step  to  step,  was  the  real,  the  natural  traitor 
against  the  American  nationality,  and  the  Southern  people  are  only 
the  victims  of  its  inevitable  treason.  But  if  slavery,  the  enemy  of  Amer 
ican  nationality,  could  not  act  otherwise  without  giving  itself  up,  how 
are  you  to  act,  the  defenders  of  American  nationality  ? 

The  answer  would  seem  to  every  unprejudiced  mind  as  plain  as  the 
question.  Still,  strange  as  it  may  appear  at  first  sight,  there  is  a  dif 
ference  of  opinion.  Only  three"  lines  of  policy  suggest  themselves. 
The  most  fertile  ingenuity  could  not  invent  any  beyond  these  three. 
Either  we  must  permit  the  slave  aristocracy  to  isolate  itself  territor 
ially  as  well  as  politically — that  is,  we  must  consent  to  the  breaking 
up  of  the  American  nationality;  or  secondly,  we  must  preserve  our 
Union  and  nationality  by  striking  down  its  enemies  in  arms  and 
by  extinguishing  the  social  and  pclitical  agency  which  in  its  nature  is 
disloyal  and  anti-national;  or,  thirdly,  we  must  invite  the  slave  aris 
tocracy  back  into  the  national  organization,  offering  to  it  that  supreme 
and  absolute  control  of  our  national  concerns  without  which  it  cannot 
insure  its  permanency  in  the  Union. 

On  the  first  proposition  the  people  have  already  pronounced  the'r 
judgment.  To  accept  it  was  impossible.  The  question  has  been  dis 
cussed  thousands  of  times;  and  every  enlightened  mind,  every  true 
American  heart,  has  always  arrived  at  the  same  conclusion.  Consid 
erations  of  policy,  national  existence,  safety,  liberty,  civilization, 
peace,  all  lead  to  the  same  result.  The  old  cry,  "The  Union  must 
and  shall  be  preserved  !"  is  not  a  mere  watch-word  of  party.  It  is  the 
instinctive  outcry  of  the  deepest  convictions,  of  the  immovable  reli 
gious  faith  of  the' American  mind.  This  conviction,  this  faith,  is  pro 
claimed  by  the  thunder  of  our  artillery;  it  is  confirmed  by  our  victories; 
it  is  scaled  with  the  blood  of  the  people.  This  question  is  no  longer 
open  to  discussion. 


624  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

But  the  conflict  between  the  two  other  propositions  is  the  real  point 
at  issue  in  our  present  controversy.  Our  opponents  may  speak  of 
tyranny,  but  the  violence  of  their  own  denunciations  gives  the  lie  to 
their  own  assertions.  It  is  dust  thrown  into  the  eyes  of  a  deluded 
multitude.  They  may  no  longer  have  the  courage  to  say  that  they  are 
for  slavery:  they  are  still  base  enough  to  say  that  they  are  not  against 
it.  All  their  tirades  and  declamations  hang  loosely  around  this  senti 
ment.  The  true  issue,  divested  of  all  its  incidental  questions,  is  this: 
A  nation  ruled  by  the  slave  power,  or  a  nation  governing  itself.  For 
the  first,  they  are  ready  to  imperil  victory  and  peace  and  union:  for 
the  second,  we  are  ready  to  destroy  slavery  forever. 

The  second  line  of  policy  before  mentioned  has  been  consistently 
acted  upon  by  the  party  holding  the  reins  of  government  during  the 
struggle.  On  some  occasion  President  Lincoln  uttered  the  follow 
ing  words  :  "I  am  not  controlling  events,  but  events  control  me." 
These  words,  applicable  of  course  only  to  the  leading  measures  of  pol 
icy,  have  been  denounced  and  ridiculed  as  a  confession  of  weakness; 
I  see  in  them  a  sign  of  a  just  understanding  of  his  situation.  Revolu 
tionary  developments  are  never  governed  by  the  preconceived  plans  of 
individuals.  Individuals  may  understand  them,  and  shape  their  course 
according;  they  may  aid  in  their  execution  and  facilitate  their  progress; 
they  may  fix  their  results  in  the  form  of  permanent  laws  and  institu 
tions — but  individuals  will  never  be  able  to  determine  their  character 
by  their  own  conceptions.  Every  such  attempt  will  prove  abortive, 
and  lead  to  violent  reactions.  A  policy  which  is  so  controlled  by  the 
spirit  of  the  times,  and  is  based  upon  a  just  appreciation  of  circum 
stances,  may,  perhaps,  not  be  very  brilliant,  but  it  will  be  safe,  and 
above  all,  eminently  democratic.  And  I  venture  to  suggest  that  a  great 
many  of  those  who  indulge  in  the  highest  sounding  figures  of  speech 
as  to  what  great  things  they  would  do,  if  they  had  the  power,  would 
hardly  be  capable  of  conceiving  so  wise  an  idea  as  that  which  the  Pres 
ident  expressed  in  language  so  simple  and  so  modest. 

And  thus  the  Government  has  steadily  followed  the  voice  of  events 
— slowly,  indeed,  but  never  retracing  a  step.  Slowly,  did  I  say  ?  We 
are  apt  to  forget  the  ordinary  relations  of  time,  at  a  moment  when  the 
struggle  of  a  century  is  compressing  itself  into  the  narrow  compass  of 
days  and  hours.  What  was  to  be  done,  and  what  was  done,  is  plain. 
I  showed  you  how,  after  the  establishment  of  the  first  colonies  the 
democratic  spirit  natural  to  new  organizations  failed  to  absorb  the 
aristocratic  element,  on  account  of  the  introduction  of  slavery.  I 
showed  you  how  the  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  the 
lofty  spirit  of  the  Revolutionary  period,  failed  in  gradually  abolishing 
slavery  in  consequence  of  an  economical  innovation.  Those  two  great 
opportunities  were  lost;  the  full  bearing  of  the  question  was  not  un 
derstood.  But  now  the  slave  power  itself  has  made  us  understand  it. 
Now,  at  last,  slavery  has  risen  in  arms  against  our  nationality.  It  has 


CARL    SCIJURZ.  625 

defied  us,  for  our  own  salvation,  to  destroy  it.  Slavery  itself,  with  its 
defiance,  has  put  the  weapon  into  our  hands,  and  in  obedience  to  the 
command  of  events  of  the  Government  of  the  Republic  has  at  last 
struck  the  blow.  Treason  has  dafied  us,  obliged  us  to  strike  it, 
and  we  have  stnick  it  on  the  head.  The  Government  has  not  con 
trolled  events,  but,  resolutely  following  their  control,  proclaimed  the 
emancipation  of  the  slave.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  the  originator  of 
the  decree,  he  was  the  recorder  of  it.  The  executors  are  the  people  ia 
arms. 

But  the  opponents  of  the  government  say  by  this  act  the  war  was 
diverted  from  its  original  object;  that  it  was  commenced  for  the  res 
toration  of  the  Union  only,  but  was  made  a  war  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery.  It  will  not  be  difficult  to  show  the  shallowness  of  this  subter 
fuge  of  bad  consciences.  Those  who  read  history  understandingiy 
will  know  that  revolutionary  movements  run  in  a  certain  determined 
direction;  that  the  point  from  which  they  start  may  be  ascertained,  but 
that  you  cannot  tell  beforehand  how  far  they  will  go.  The  extent  of 
their  progress  depends  upon  the  strength  of  the  opposition  they  meet; 
if  the  opposition  is  weak  and  short,  the  revolution  will  stop  short  also; 
but  if  the  opposition  is  strong  and  stubborn,  the  movement  will  roll 
on  until  every  opposing  element  in  its  path  is  trodden  down  and 
crushed. 

!  invite  our  opponents  to  look  back  upon  the  war  of  the  Revolution. 
Was  the  Revolution  commenced  for  the  achievement  of  independence 
from  Great  Britain  ?  No;  it  was  commenced  in  opposition  to  the 
arbitrary  acts  of  the  British  Government;  it  was  commenced  for  the 
redress  of  specified  grievancies,  and  in  vindication  of  colonial  rights 
and  liberties.  Far-reaching  minds  may  have  foreseen  the  ultimate 
development,  but  it  is  well  known  that  some  of  the  most  energetic  rev 
olutionary  characters  disclaimed  most  emphatically  all  intention  to 
make  the  colonies  independent  not  long  before  independence  was  act 
ually  declared.  And  how  did  they  come  to  divert  the  Revolutionary 
\Varfrom  its  original  object?  The  process  was  simple.  They  per 
mitted  themselves  to  be  controlled  by  events.  In  the  course  of  the 
struggle  they  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the 
colonies  would  not  be  secure  as  long  as  the  British  Government  h  ai 
the  power  to  enforce  arbitrary  measures  in  this  country;  they  saw  that 
British  dominion  was  incompatible  with  American  liberty.  Then 
independence  was  declared.  It  was  decreed  by  the  logic  of  events;  it 
was  recorded  by  Jefferson;  it  was  enforced  by  Washington. 

This  was  the  way  in  which  a  struggle  for  a  mere  redress  of  grievan 
cies  was  "  perverted  "  into  a  struggle  for  the  abolition  of  British  domin 
ion.  Is  there  anybody,  to-day,  bold  enough  to  assert  that  this  perver 
sion  was  illegitimate  ?  Let  us  return  to  the  crisis  in  which  we  are 
engaged 

We  went  into  the  war  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  the  Union, 


626  A  MERICA  X  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

and  preserving  our  nationality.  Although  it  was  the  slave  power 
which  had  attempted  to  break  up  the  Union,  we  did,  at  first,  not  touch 
slavery  in  defending  the  Union.  No,  with  a  scrupulousness  of  very 
doubtful  merit,  slavery  was  protected  by  many  of  ovrr  leaders — especi 
ally  one  of  them,  who  at  that  time  held  the  highest  military  command, 
made  it  a  particular  object  not  to  hurt  slavery  while  fighting  against  the 
rebellious  slaveholder,  and  he  exhausted  all  the  resources  of  his  states 
manship  for  that  purpose.  It  is  true  he  exhausted,  at  the  same  time, 
the  patience  of  the  people. 

That  statesmanship  threatened  to  exhaust  all  our  military  and  finan 
cial  resources;  but  if,  indeed,  it  did  threaten  to  exhaust  the  resources  of  the 
rebellion,  the  threat  was  very  gentle.  You  remember  the  results  of  that 
period  of  kid-glove  policy,  which  the  South  found  so  very  gentlemanly  : 
reverse  after  reverse  ;  popular  discontent  rising  to  despondency  ;  ruin 
staring  us  in  the  face.  The  war  threatened,  indeed,  to  become  a  failure  ; 
and  if  the  resolution  of  the  Chicago  Convention,  which  declared  the 
war  a  failure,  had  special  reference  to  the  period  when  the  distinguished 
candidate  of  the  Democratic  party  was  General-in-Chief,  then,  it  must 
be  confessed,  the  Chicago  Convention  showed  a  certain  degree  of  judg 
ment. 

Gradually  it  became  clear  to  every  candid  mind  that  slavery,  un 
touched,  constituted  the  strength  of  the  rebellion  ;  but  that  slavery, 
touched,  would  constitute  its  weakness.  The  negro  tilled  its  fields,  and 
feel  its  armies  ;  the  negro  carried  its  baggage  and  dug  its  trenches  ; 
and  the  same  negro  was  longing  for  the  day  when  he  would 
be  permitted  to  fight  for  the  Union,  instead  of  being  forced  to 
work  for  the  rebellion.  To  oblige  him  to  work  for  the  rebellion,  in 
stead  of  permitting  him  to  fight  for  the  Union,  would  have  been  more 
than  folly — it  would  have  been  a  crime  against  the  nation.  To  give  him 
his  freedom,  then,  was  an  act  of  justice  not  only  to  him,  but  to  the 
American  Republic. 

If  the  rebellious  slave  power  had  submitted,  after  the  first  six  months 
of  the  war,  it  is  possible  that  slavery  might  have  had  another  lease  of 
life.  But  its  resistance  being  vigorous  and  stubborn,  and  not  only  that, 
its  resistance  being  crowned  with  success,  it  became  a  question  of  life  or 
death — the  death  of  the  nation,  or  the  death  of  slavery.  Then  the  gov 
ernment  chose.  It  chose  the  life  of  the  nation  by  the  death  of  slavery  ; 
and  the  revolution  rolled  over  the  treasonable  institution,  and  crushed  it 
wherever  it  found  it. 

Could  an  act  which  undermined  the  strength  of  the  enemy,  and  in  the 
same  measure  added  to  our  own — could  that  be  called  diverting  the  wr.r 
from  its  original  purpose  ?  Was  not  the  object  of  the  war  to  restore  the 
Union  ?  How  then  could  we  refrain  from  using  for  cur  purposes  an 
element  which  was  certain  to  contribute  most  powerfully  to  that  end? 
Was  it  not  the  object  of  the  war  to  make  the  Union  permanent  by  re 
storing  loyalty  to  the  Union  ?  But  by  what  means  in  the  vorld  can 


&  627 

loyalty  be  restored,  if  it  is  not  by  crushing  out  the  element  which  breeds 
disloyalty  and  treason  as  its  natural  offspring? 

But  if  it  is  the  opinion  of  our  opponents  that  it  was  the  original  ob 
ject  of  the  war  to  lay  the  North  helpless  at  the  feet  of  the  South,  then  it 
must  be  admitted  the  war  is  now  much  perverted  from  its  original  objecr. 

The  matter  stands  clear  in  the  light  of  experience.  Every  man  who 
professes  to  be  for  the  Union,  and  ;  hows  any  tenderness  for  an  agency 
which  is  bound  to  destroy  the  Union,  has  in  his  heart  a  dark  corner 
into  which  the  spirit  of  true  loyalty  has  not  yet  penetrated.  And  on 
the  other  hand,  every  man,  whatever  his  opinions  may  have  been,  as 
soon  as  he  throws  his  whole  heart  into  the  struggle  for  the  Union, 
throws  at  the  same  time  his  whole  heart  into  the  struggle  against 
slavery. 

Look  at  some  of  the  brightest  names  which  the  history  of  this  period 
will  hand  down  to  posterity;  your  own  Dan:elS.  Dickinson,  Benjamin 
F.  Butler  of  Massachusetts,  the  venerable  Breckinridge  of  Kentucky, 
the  brave  Andrew  Johnson  of  Tennessee,  and  many  thousands  of 
brave  spirits  of  less  note.  You  cannot  say  that  they  were  abolition 
ists;  but  they  are  honestly  for  the  death  of  slavery,  because  they  are 
honestly  for  the  life  of  the  nation. 

Emancipation  would  have  been  declared  in  this  war,  even  if  there 
had  not  been  a  single  abolitionist  in  America  before  the  war.  The 
measure  followed  as  naturally,  as  necessarily,  upon  the  first  threaten 
ing  successes  of  the  rebellion,  as  a  clap  of  thunder  follows  upon  a  flash 
of  lightning.  Nay,  if  there  had  been  a  life-long  pro-slavery  man  in 
the  presidential  chair,  but  a  Union  man  of  a  true  heart  and  a  clear 
head — such  a  rnan  as  will  lay  his  hand  to  the  plough  without  look 
ing  back — he  would,  after  the  first  year  of  the  rebellion,  have 
stretched  out  his  hand  to  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  and  would  have 
said  to  him,  "  Thou  art  my  man."  Listening  to  the  voice  of  reason, 
duty,  conscience,  he  would  have  torn  the  inveterate  prejudice  from 
his  heart,  and  with  an  eager  hand  he  would  have  signed  the  death- 
warrant  of  the  treacherous  idol. 

And  you  speak  of  diverting  the  war  from  its  legitimate  object !  As 
in  the  war  of  the  revolution  no  true  patriot  shrank  back  from  the  con 
clusion  that  colonial  rights  and  liberties  could  not  be  permanently  se 
cured,  but  by  the  abolition  of  British  dominion,  so  in  our  times  no 
true  Union  rnan  can  shrink  back  from  the  equally  imperative  conclu 
sion  that  the  permanency  of  the  Union  cannot  be  secured,  but  by  the 
abolition  of  its  arch-enemy — which  is  slavery.  The  Declaration  of  In 
dependence  was  no  more  the  natural,  logical,  and  legitimate  conse 
quence  of  the  struggle  for  colonial  rights  and  liberties  than  the  Emanci 
pation  proclamation  is  the  natural,  logical,  and  legitimate  consequence 
of  our  struggle  for  the  Union.  The  Emancipation  proclamation 
is  the  true  sister  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  it  is  the  supple 
mentary  aci;  it  is  the  Declaration  of  Independence  translated  from 


628  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

universal  principle  into  universal  fact.  And  the  two  great  state 
papers  will  stand  in  the  history  of  this  country  as  the  proudest  monu 
ments  not  only  of  American  statesmanship,  American  spirit,  and 
American  virtue,  but  also  of  the  earnestness  and  good  faith  of  the 
American  heart.  The  fourth  of  July,  1776,  will  shine  with  tenfold 
lustre,  for  its  glory  is  at  last  completed  by  the  first  of  January,  1863. 

Thus  the  same  logic  of  things  which  had  driven  the  naturally  dis 
loyal  slave  aristocracy  to  attempt  the  destruction  of  the  Union,  impelled 
the  earnest  defenders  of  the  Union  to  destroy  slavery. 

Still,  we  are  told  that  the  Emancipation  proclamation  had  an  injur 
ious  effect  upon  the  conduct  of  the  war.  This  may  sound  supremely 
ridiculous  at  this  moment,  but  it  seems  there  is  nothing  too  ridic 
ulous  for  the  leaders  of  the  opposition  to  assert,  and  nothing  too 
ridiculous  for  their  followers  to  believe.  Still  let  us  hear  them.  They 
say  that  the  anti-slavery  policy  of  the  government  divided  the 
North  and  united  the  South.  And  who  were  these  patriots  who  so 
clamorously  complained  of  the  divisions  in  the  North?  They  were 
the  same  men  who  divided. 

I  will  tell  them  what  the  anti-slavery  policy  of  the  government  did 
do. 

It  furnished  a  welcome  pretext  for  those  in  the  North  whose  loy 
alty  was  shaky,  and  it  permanently  attached  to  our  colors  four  mil 
lions  of  hearts  in  the  South,  whose  loyalty  was  sound.  It  brought 
every  man  down  to  his  true  level.  It  made  the  negro  a  fighting 
patriot,  and  it  made  the  pro-slavery  peace  democrat  a  skulking  tory. 
It  added  two  hundred  thousand  black  soldiers  to  our  armies,  and  it 
increases  their  number  daily. 

I  wish  to  call  your  special  attention  to  this  point.  I  will  not 
discuss  the  soldierly  qualities  of  the  negro.  Although  on  many 
bloody  fields  he  has  proved  them,  and  although  I  consider  a  black 
man  fighting  for  his  own  and  our  liberty  far  superior,  as  a  sol 
dier,  to  a  white  man  who  dodges  a  fight  against  slavery,  yet,  for 
argument's  sake,  I  am  willing  to  suppose  that  the  negro  soldier  is 
best  to  be  used  as  a  garrison  and  guard  soldier  on  our  immense  lines 
of  railroads,  in  fortified  places  and  posts.  This,  not  even  our  oppon 
ents  will  deny.  But  do  they  not  see  that,  in  using  him  thus,  we  can 
release  so  many  white  veterans  from  such  duty  and  send  them  forward 
to  the  battle-field  ?  Do  they  not  see  that  only  in  this  way,  it  becomes 
possible  to  effect  those  formidable  concentrations  of  military  power, 
and  thus  to  achieve  those  glorious  results,  which  have  made  the  rebel 
lion  reel  and  the  hearts  of  the  Northern  traitors  quake  ?  Do  they  not 
see  that,  while  it  may  not  be  the  negro  who  beats  the  enemy  on  the 
battle-field,  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether,  without  the  negro  re- 
infor^ements,  we  could  hurl  such  strength  against  the  enemy  as 
makes  victory  sure?  No  wonder  that  there  are  opposed  to  the  negro 
sold'  .rs  those  whose  cheeks  grew  pale  when  they  heard  of  the  taking 


CARL   SCHURZ.  629 

of  Atlanta,  and  of  Sheridan  whirling  the  rebels  out  of  the  Valley  of 
Virginia. 

The  emancipation  proclamation,  I  say,  added  two  hundred  thousand 
black  soldiers  to  our  armies,  and  it  may  indeed  have  kept  some  white 
ones  away,  who  merely  wanted  an  excuse  for  not  going  anyhow. 
They  say  a  white  soldier  cannot  fight  by  the  side  of  the  negro.  I 
know  of  white  soldiers  who  were  very  glad  to  see  the  negro  fight  by 
their  side.  Ask  our  brave  men  at  Petersburg,  along  the  Mississippi, 
and  on  the  Southern  coast.  Their  cheers,  when  they  saw  the  black 
columns  dash  upon  the  works  of  the  enemy,  did  not  sound  like  indig 
nant  protest  against  the  companionship.  But  those  dainty  folks  who 
raise  the  objection  as  a  point  of  honor,  will,  I  candidly  believe,  indcoil 
not  fight  by  the  side  of  the  negro,  for  they  are  just  the  men  who  will 
not  fight  at  all. 

The  Emancipation  proclamation  and  the  enlistment  of  negroes  had 
an  injurious  effect  upon  the  war  !  and  because  the  emancipation  de 
cree  had  an  injurious  effect  upon  the  war,  the  war  is  a  "failure  !"  In 
deed,  it  looks  much  like  it  !  The  peace  Democrats  may  call  a  man 
who  undoubtedly  is  high  authority  with  them,  they  may  call  Jefferson 
Davis  himself  upon  the  stand  as  a  witness,  to  say  what  he  thinks  of 
this  failure;  they  may  call  for  the  professional  opinions  of  Lee,  John 
ston,  Hood,  and  Early,  and  I  am  willing  to  abide  by  it.  Attorneys 
Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan,  and  Farragut  have  already  entered  their 
pleas  in  the  case,  and,  methinks,  the  judicial  bench  of  history  is  about 
to  pronounce  the  final  verdict.  And  when  that  verdict  is  out,  the  genius 
of  justice  will  rejoice  that  the  power  of  the  slave  aristocracy  could  be 
beaten  down  in  spite  of  the  united  efforts  and  of  the  exhaustion  of  all 
its  resources,  and  that  the  cause  of  liberty  and  union  could  triumph 
without  the  support  of  those  whose  hearts  were  divided  between  God 
and  mammon.  Yes,  freedom  will  at  one  blow  have  conquered  the 
whole  force  of  its  adversaries — those  that  were  in  arms  against  it  as 
open  enemies,  and  those  that  imperilled  its  success  as  uncertain 
friends. 

But  the  Emancipation  proclamation  did  us  still  another  service  It 
is  well  known  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  not  only  the  sympa 
thies  of  the  most  powerful  European  governments  were  against  us, 
but  that  the  sympathies,  of  European  nations  were  doubtful.  Our 
armies  were  beaten,  our  prospects  looked  hopeless,  and  to  the  current 
running  against  us  we  had  to  offer  no  counterpoise.  The  nations  of 
Europe  looked  across  the  ocean  with  anxious  eyes,  and  asked  :  "•  Will 
not  now,  at  last,  the  great  blow  be  struck  against  the  most  hideous 
abomination  of  this  age?  Are  they  so  in  love  with  it  that  they  will 
not  even  destroy  it  to  save  themselves?"  For  you  must  know  every 
enlightened  European  is  a  natural  anti-slavery  man.  His  heart,  al 
though  burdened  with  so  many  loads,  has  not  been  corrupted  by  the 
foul  touch  of  that  institution,  which  seems  to  demoralize  everything 


630  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

that  breathes  its  atmosphere.  And  when  they  saw,  to  their  titter  as 
tonishment  and  disgust,  that  at  first  slavery  was  not  touched,  their 
hearts  sunk  within  them,  and  they  began  to  explain  the  reverses  we 
suffered  by  the  moral  weakness  of  our  cause. 

At  last  the  Emancipation  proclamation  came.  A  shout  of  triumph 
went  up  from  every  liberty- loving  heart.  Once  more  the  friends  of 
freedom  in  each  hemisphere  joined  in  a  common  sympathy.  Once 
more  the  cause  of  the  American  people  became  the  cause  of  liberty  the 
world  over.  Once  more  our  struggle  was  identified  with  the  noblest 
aspirations  of  the  human  race.  Once  more  our  reverses  found  a  re 
sponse  of  sorrow  in  the  great  heart  of  mankind,  and  our  victories 
aroused  a  jubilant  acclaim  which  rolled  around  the  globe.  Do  you  re 
member  the  touching  address  of  the  workingmen  of  Manchester? 
While  the  instincts  of  despotism  everywhere  conspired  against  us,  while 
the  aristocracy  of  Great  Britain  covered  us  with  their  sneering  con 
tempt,  while  the  laboring  men  in  England  began  to  suffer  by  the  stop 
ping  of  the  cotton  supply,  and  the  nobility  and  the  princes  of  industry 
told  them  that  their  misery  was  our  fault,  the  great  heart  of  the  poor 
man  rose  in  its  magnificence,  and  the  English  laborer  stretched  his 
hard  hand  across  the  Atlantic  to  grasp  that  of  our  President,  and  he 
said  :  All  hail,  Liberator  !  Although  want  and  miser)-  may  knock  at 
my  doors,  mind  it  not.  I  may  suffer,  but  be  you  firm  !  Let  the  slave 
be  free,  let  the  dignity  of  human  nature  be  vindicated,  let  universal 
liberty  triumph  !  All  hail,  American  people  !  we  are  your  brothers  ! 

And  this  sympathy  did  not  remain  a  mere  idle  exchange  of  friendly 
feelings.  That  sympathy  controlled  public  opinion  in  Europe,  and 
that  public  opinion  held  in  check  the  secret  desires  of  unfriendly  gov 
ernments.  Mason  and  Slidell  slink  from  ante-chamber  to  ante-cham 
ber  like  two  ticket-of-leave  men,  and  they  find  written  above  every 
door  the  inscription  :  "  No  slavery  here  !"  No  government  would  dare 
to  recognize  the  slaveholding  Confederacy  without  loading  itself  down 
with  the  contempt  and  curses  of  the  people.  The  irres  stible  moral 
power  of  a  great  and  good  cause  has  achieved  for  us  victories  abroad 
•no  less  signal  than  the  victories  our  arms  have  achieved  for  us  at 
home.  Our  arms  will  lay  the  enemies  of  the  nation  helpless  at  our  feet, 
but  Emancipation  has  pressed  the  heart  of  the  world  to  our  hearts. 

But  our  opponents  are  not  moved  by  all  this.  They  come  with  their 
last  pitiable  quibble,  and  I  beg  your  pardon  for  answering  that  also. 
They  say:  r<  Your  Emancipation  proclamation  was  nothing  but  wind 
after  all.  The  proclamation  did  not  effect  the  emancipation  of  the 
slaves."  It  is  true,  slavery  is  not  abolished  by  the  proclamation  alone, 
just  as  little  as  by  the  mere  Declaration  of  Independence  the  British 
armies  were  driven  away  arid  the  independence  of  the  colonies  estab 
lished.  But  that  declaration  was  made  good  forever  by  the  taking  of 
Yorktown,  and  I  feel  safe  in  predicting  that  our  proclamation  will  be 
made  as  good  forever  bv  the  taking  of  Richmond.  Put  there  is  one 


CARL   SC2IUXZ.  631 

point  at  which  all  parallel  with  the  Revolution  fails.  If  in  those  times 
a  person,  had  proposed  to  make  an  anti-independence  man  commander- 
in-chief,  he  would  have  been  put  into  the  mad-house,  while  in  our  days 
those  are  running  around  loose  who  seriously  try  to  persuade  the  peo 
ple  to  make  an  anti-emancipation  man  president  of  the  United  States. 

Yes,  incredible  as  it  may  seem  to  all  who  are  not  initiated  into  the 
mysteries  of  American  politics,  the  idea  is  seriously  entertained  to 
carry  out  that  third  line  of  policy  of  which  I  spoke  before — to  invite 
the  slave  power  back  into  the  national  organization,  offering  to  it  that 
supreme  and  absolute  control  of  our  national  concerns  without  which 
it  cannot  insure  its  permanancy  in  the  Union;  and,  adroitly  enough, 
this  programme  has  been  condensed  into  a  single  euphonious  sentence 
which  is  well  apt  to  serve  as  the  campaign  cry  of  a  party.  It  is  this: 
The  Union  must  be  restored  "as  it  was." 

We  are  frequently  cautioned  against  visionaries  in  politics,  because 
with  their  extravagant  schemes  they  are  apt  to  lead  people  into  danger 
ous  and  costly  experiments.  But  the  visionaries  in  innovations  are 
harmless  compared  with  the  visionaries  who  set  their  hearts  upon  re 
storing  what  is  definitively  gone,  and  has  become  morally  impossible; 
for  while  the  former  may  find  it  difficult  to  make  the  people  believe  in 
the  practicability  of  their  novel  ideas,  the  latter  not  rarely  succeed  in 
persuading  the  multitude  that  what  had  been  may  be  again.  Such  a 
visionary  was  Napoleon,  who  planned  the  restoration  of  the  empire  of 
Charlemagne;  he  flooded  Europe  with  blood,  and  failed.  But  the 
restoration  of  the  empire  of  Charlemagne  was  mere  child's  play  in 
comparison  with  the  restoration  of  the  Union  "  as  it  was,"  and  a  task 
far  more  difficult  than  that  to  which  the  genius  of  old  Napoleon  suc 
cumbed,  is  by  a  discriminrting  fate  wisely  set  apart  for  our  "young 
Napoleon"  to  perform.  We  are,  indeed,  assured  by  his  friends  that 
he  will  again  exhaust  all  the  resources  of  his  statesmanship  for  that 
purpose.  This  statesmanship  is  indeed  very  obliging.  It  can  hardly 
have  recovered  from  its  first  exhaustion,  and  now  it  tells  us  kindly 
that  it  is  ready  to  exhaust  itself  once  more.  It  would  be  uncivil  to 
accept  the  sacrifice.  We  will  take  the  good  will  for  the  deed  and  dis 
pense  with  it.  Still,  I  consider  it  an  evidence  of  appreciative  judg 
ment  on  the  part  of  his  friends  to  have  selected  just  that  candidate  for 
a  task  which  can  be  performed  only  in  his  characteristic  manner;  set 
ting  out  with  a  grand  flourish  of  promises  and  coming  back  with  a 
grander  flourish  of  apologies. 

Restore  the  Union  "as  it  was!"  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  great  war 
that  left  a  country  in  the  same  condition  in  which  it  had  found  it?  Did 
you  ever  hear  of  a  great  revolution  which  left  the  political  and  social 
relations  of  the  contending  parties  as  they  had  been  before  the  strug 
gle  ?  And  there  are  visionaries  who  believe  that  relations  which  rested 
i.:pon  mutual  confidence  can  be  restored  when  that  confidence  has 
been  drowned  in  a  sea  of  blood.  Do  you  really  think  you  can  ever 
A.  P. -21. 


632  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM, 

restore  the  confidence  "as  it  was"  between  two  companions,  one  of 
whom  has  been  detected  in  an  attempt  to  rob  and  murder  the  other  in 
his  sleep?  By  no  process  of  reasoning  can  you  prove — nay,  not  even 
in  the  wildest  flights  of  your  imagination  can  you  conceive,  the  possi 
bility  that  the  relations  between  a  dominant  and  an  enslaved  race  can 
be  placed  upon  the  ancient  footing,  when  two  hundred  thousand  men 
of  the  enslaved  race  have  been  in  arms  against  their  masters,  and  in 
arms,  too,  at  the  call  of  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Republic.  You 
cannot  leave  them  such  as  they  are  ;  you  cannot  permit  them  even  to 
remember  that  they  have  fought  for  us  as  well  as  for  themselves,  wiih- 
out  following  up  the  events  which  made  them  what  they  are,  to  the 
full  consummation  of  the  freedom  of  the  race.  And,  on  the  other 
liand,  you  cannot  keep  the  race  in  bondage  without  reducing  those 
who  are  now  fighting  for  their  own  and  our  freedom  to  their  former 
state  of  subjection;  and  you  cannot  do  this  without  inaugurating  the 
most  sweeping,  the  most  violent  and  bloody  reaction  against  justice 
and  liberty  the  world  ever  witnessed.  And  you  cannot  provoke  that 
reaction  without  provoking  another  revolution  on  its  heels.  And  now 
you  speak  of  restoring  the  Union  "  as  it  was!" 

Such  things  have  been  tried  before,  and  we  find  the  consequences  on 
the  records  of  history.  England  had  her  restoration  of  the  Stuart 
dyrrasty,  and  it  led  to  the  revolution  of  1688.  France  had  her  restora 
tion  of  the  Bourbon  dynasty,  and  it  led  to  the  revolution  of  i8~o. 
And  why  these  revolutions?  Because  the  Stuarts  tried  a  reaction 
against  the  principles  sealed  with  English  blood  at  Naseby ;  because  the 
Bourbons  tried  a  reaction  against  the  principles  sealed  with  French 
blood  at  the  Bastile,  and  on  a  hundred  battle-fields.  Might  not 
America  profit  by  the  example?  You  think  you  can  restore  the  cotton 
dynasty  without  provoking  reaction  and  another  revolution  ? 

But  for  our  opponents,  it  seems,  history  has  no  intelligible  voice. 
We  have  only  to  shake  hands  with  the  rebels,  and  the  past  is  blotted 
out.  We  have  only  to  act  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  and  all  will  be 
as  it  was  before  something  did  happen.  This  is  their  promise.  I  ap 
peal  to  the  people.  If  your  leaders  promised  you  to  revive  all  those 
fallen  in  battle,  and  to  gather  up  the  blood  spilt  on  so  many  fields,  and 
to  infuse  it  into  the  veins  of  the  resurrected,  the  presumption  upon 
your  credulity  could  not  be  more  extravagant.  Are  you  so  devoid  of 
pride,  are  you  so  completely  without  self-respect,  as  to  permit  so  grois 
an  imposition  to  be  presented  to  you,  as  if  you  were  capable  of  being 
trapped  by  it  ?  Will  you  suffer  them  to  insult  your  understanding, 
and  to  stamp  you  as  incorrigible  fools,  with  impunity  ?  This,  indeed, 
is  one  of  the  cases  in  which  we  do  not  know  what  to  admire  most — 
the  towering  impudence  of  the  impostors,  or  the  unfathomable  stu 
pidity  of  the  victims.  Let  those  who  go  into  the  open  trap  of  the 
jugglers  glory  in  the  reputation  of  the  folly.  But  a  man  of  sense  can 
not  permit  himself  to  be  gulled  by  so  transparent  an  absurdity  with- 


,.  CARL    SCIIURZ.  633 

out  despising  himself.      I  call  upon  you  to  vindicate  the  fair  fame  of 
the  Americans,  as  an  intelligent  people! 

But  it  would  be  unfair  to  presume  that  those  who  raised  the  artful 
cry  have  merely  done  so  for  the  purpose  of  setting  a  trap  for 
political  idiots.  There  is  really  something  which  they  do  want  to  re 
store,  and  there  they  are  in  earnest.  They  really  do  mean  to  revive 
one  feature  of  the  old  Union;  not  that  fidelity  to  the  eternal  prin 
ciples  of  justice  and  liberty,  which  in  the  early  times  of  this  Republic 
was  the  admiration  of  mankind,  but  another  thing,  which  has  become 
an  object  of  disgust  to  every  patriotic  heart,  and  has  succeeded  in 
creating  doubts  in  the  practicability  of  democratic  institutions.  I  have 
spoken  of  the  demoralizing  principle:  "To  the  victors  belong  the 
spoils;"  and  how,  during  the  most  disgraceful  period  of  our  history, 
victory  with  the  spoils  could  only  be  obtained  by  abject  subserviency 
to  the  slave  aristocracy.  And  now,  what  they  mean  to  restore,  is 
slavery  to  its  former  power.  Again  the  South  is  to  be  a  unit  for  the 
interests  of  slavery;  again  the  united  Southern  vote,  with  a  few 
Northern  states,  is  to  command  our  elections;  again  the  knife  of  seces 
sion  is  to  be  flourished  over  the  head  of  the  nation;  again  our  legisla 
tors  and  the  people  are  to  be  terrorized  with  the  cry  :  "  Do  what  our 
Southern  brethren  want  you  to  do,  or  they  will  dissolve  the  Union 
once  more!"  and  the  terrors  of  the  past  are  to  be  used  as  a  powerful 
means  of  intimidation  for  the  future.  Again  this  great  nation  is  to  be 
swayed,  not  by  reason,  but  by  fear;  and  again  the  interests  and  the 
virtue  of  the  people  are  to  be  traded  away  for  public  plunder.  And 
so  they  stand  before  the  rebels  as  humble  suppliants  with  this  igno 
minious  appeal:  "We  are  tired  of  being  our  own  masters;  come 
back  and  rule  us.  We  are  tired  of  our  manhood;  come  back  and  de 
grade  us!  We  do  feel  well  in  a  Union  firmly  established;  come  back 
and  threaten  us!  We  are  eager  once  more  to  sell  out  the  liberties  and 
honor  of  the  people  for  the  sweets  of  public  plunder;  come,  oh!  come 
back  and  corrupt  us!" 

And  in  this  disgraceful  supplication  they  call  upon  a  great  and  noble 
people  to  join  them;  to  join  after  deeds  and  sacrifices ' so  heroic,  after 
a  struggle  for  the  nation's  free  and  great  future,  so- glorious;  to  join 
at  a  moment  when  at  last  victory  crowns  our  helmets,  and  v.hen  the 
day  of  peace,  bright  and  warm,  dawns  upon  our  dark  and  bloody  field. 
Ah,  if  it  could  be,  if  the  nation  could  so  basely  forget  her  great  past, 
and  her  greater  future;  if  the  nation  could  so  wantonly  denude  herself 
of  all  self-respect  and  shame  and  decency,  and  plunge  into  the  mire  of 
this  most  foul  prostitution;  if  this  could  be,  then,'  indeed,  betrayed 
mankind  could  not  hate  us  with  a  resentment  too  deep;  all  future  gen 
erations  could  not  despise  us  with  a  contempt  too  scorching;  there 
would  be  no  outrage  on  the  dignity  of  human  nature  in  the  annals  of 
the  world  for  which  this  base  surrender  would  not  furnish  a  full  apolo 
gy.  If  it  could  be  so,  them  every  one  of  your  great  battles  would  be 


634  A  ME  RICA  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

nothing  but  a  mass-murder  of  the  first  degree;  the  war  with  its  ruin 
and  desolation  would  have  been  nothing  but  an  act  of  wanton  barbar 
ism.  Then  be  silent  of  your  glorious  exploits,  you  soldiers  in  the 
field;  conceal  your  scars  and  mangled  limbs,  you  wounded  heroes: 
you  mothers  and  wives  and  sisters,  who  wear  your  mourning  with 
pride,  hide  your  heads  in  shame — for  the  triumphant  rebel  sits  upon 
the  graves  of  our  dead  victories,  whip  in  hand,  and  with  a  mocking 
grin  laughs  at  the  dastardly  self-degradation  of  his  conquerors. 

It  is  difficult  to  speak  about  this  with  calmness;  yet  we  must  make 
the  effort. 

This,  then,  is  our  situation:  We  have  to  choose  between  two  lines 
of  policy,  represented  by  two  parties — the  one  fully  appreciating  the 
tendency  of  the  movement,  and  resolutely  following  the  call  of  the 
times;  fully  and  honestly  determined  to  achieve  .the  great  object  of 
preserving  the  nation,  and  with  consistent  energy  using  every  means' 
necessary  for  that  purpose;  striking  the  rebellion  by  crippling  the 
strength  of  the  traitors,  and  restoring  loyalty  by  stopping  the  source 
of  treason;  a  party,  not  infallible  indeed,  but  inspired  by  the  noblest 
impulses  of  the  human  heart,  and  impelled  by  the  dearest  interests  of 
humanity;  in  full  harmony  with  the  moral  laws  of  the  universe,  in 
warm  sympathy  with  the  humane  and  progressive  spirit  of  our  age. 
Let  its  policy  be  judged  by  its  fruits;  the  heart  of  mankind  beating  for 
our  cause;  the  once  down-trodden  and  degraded  doing  inestimable 
service  for  our  liberty  as  well  as  their  own;  the  armies  of  the  Union 
sweeping  like  a  whirlwind  over  rebeldom,  and  the  rebellion  crumb 
ling  to  pieces  wherever  we  touch  it.  Would  it  be  wise  to  abandon  a 
course  of  policy,  which,  aside  of  our  moral  satisfaction,  has  given  us 
such  material  guarantees  of  our  success  ?  And  what  inducement  is 
offered  to  us  for  leaving  it  ?  Is  it  a  policy  still  clearer  and  more  satis 
factory  to  our  moral  nature  ?  Is  its  success  still  more  certain,  a  re 
sult  still  more  glorious  ?  Let  us  see  what  they  present  us  ? 

A  party  which  does  not  dare  to  advance  a  single  clear  and  positive 
principle  upon  which  it  proposes  to  act ;  a  party  which  gives  us  nothing 
but  a  vague  assurance  of  its  fidelity  to  the  Union  coupled  with  the  pre 
position  of  stopping  the  war,  which  alone  can  lead  to  the  restoration  of 
the  Union  ;  giving  us  a  platform  which  its  candidate  does  not  dare  to 
stand  upon,  and  a  candidate  who  quietly  submits  to  the  assertions  of 
his  supporters  that  he  will  be  obliged  to  stand  on  the  platform  ;  a  party 
v.'hich  was  waiting  two  months  fora  policy,  and  then  found  its  policy  up 
set  by  events  two  clays  after  it  had  been  declared  ;  a  party  floundering 
like  a  drunken  man  between  a  treacherous  peace  and  a  faithless  war, 
betv/een  disunion  that  shall  not  be  and  a  kind  of  union  that  cannot  be  ; 
a  party  which  is  like  a  ship  without  compass  and  rudder,  with  a  captain 
who  declares  that  he  will  not  do  what  he  is  hired  to  do,  with  a  set  of 
officers  who  swear  that  he  shall  do  it,  with  a  crew  who  were  enticed  on 
board  by  false  pretences,  and  who  are  kept  by  the  vague  impression  that 


CARL   SCIIURZ.  635 

there  is  something  good  in  the  kitchen,  and  that  vessel  bound  for  a  port 
which  does  not  exist  on  the  map. 

And  why  all  this  wild  confusion  of  ideas  and  cross  purposes  ?  Why 
all  these  ridiculous  absurdities  in  its  propositions?  Simply  because  that 
party  refuses  to  stand  upon  the  clear  and  irrevocable  developments  of 
history,  and  denies  the  stern  reality  of  accomplished  facts  ;  because  it 
repudiates  the  great  and  inexorable  laws  by  which  human  events  art; 
governed  ;  because  it  shuts  its  eyes  against  the  manifest  signs  of  tho 
times  ;  because,  while  pretending  to  save  the  Union,  it  protects  the 
Union's  sworn  enemy  ;  because  it  deems  it  consistent  with  loyalty  to 
keep  alive  the  mother  of  treason  ;  in  one  word,  because  it  insists  upon 
saving  slavery  in  spite  of  its  suicidal  crime.  And  to  this  most  detes 
table  monomania  it  is  ready  to  subordinate  every  other  principle,  every 
other  interest,  every  other  consideration  of  policy.  To  save  slavery 
it  throws  all  imaginable  impediments  in  the  way  of  every  measure  of  the 
government  directed  against  the  main  strength  of  the  rebellion  ;  to  save 
slavery  it  would  rather  have  seen  our  armies  doomed  to  defeat  by  weak 
ness  than  strengthened  for  victory  by  the  colored  element ;  to  save  sla 
very  it  would  rather  have  seen  foreign  governments  interfere  in  favor  of 
the  rebellion  than  the  heart  of  mankind  attached  to  our  cause  by  the 
glorious  decree  of  liberty  ;  to  save  slavery  it  insists  upon  interrupting 
the  magnificent  course  of  our  victories  by  a  cessation  of  hostilities, 
which  would  save  the  rebellion  from  speedy  and  certain  ruin  ;  to  savo 
slavery  it  is  ready  to  sacrifice  the  manhood  of  the  people,  and  to  lay 
them  at  the  feet  of  the  rebel  aristocracy  as  humble  suppliants  for  an  ig 
nominious  rule.  And  this  rank  madness  you  would  think  of  placing  at 
the  helm  of  affairs  in  a  crisis  which  will  decide  our  future  forever  ? 

I  invite  those  of  our  opponents  whose  heads  and  hearts  are  not  ir 
retrievably  wrapt  in  self-deception,  to  mount  with  me  for  a  moment  a 
higher  watch-tower  than  that  of  party.  Look  once  more  up  and  down 
the  broad  avenues  of  your  history.  Show  me  your  men  in  the  first 
great  days  of  the  republic  whose  names  shine  with  untarnished  lustre, 
the  men  whom  you  parade  in  the  foremost  ranks  when  you  boast  be 
fore  the  world  abroad  of  your  nation's  greatness;  there  is  not  one  of 
them  who  did  not  rack  his  brain  to  find  a  way  in  which  the  republic 
could  be  delivered  of  the  incubus  of  slavery.  But  their  endeavors 
vvere  in  vain.  The  masses  of  the  people  did  not  see  the  greatness  cf 
the  danger;  their  eyes  vvere  blinded  by  the  seductive  shine  of  moment 
ary  advantages.  Then  at  once  began  one  of  those  great  laws  by 
which  human  affairs  right  themselves,  to  operate.  It  is  the  law  that  a 
great  abuse,  urged  on  by  its  necessities,  must  render  itself  insupport 
able  and  defy  destruction.  Slavery  grew  up  under  your  fostering 
care;  with  its  dimensions  grew  its  necessities.  It  asked  for  security  at 
home,  and  what  it  asked  was  given.  It  asked  for  its  share  in  what  we 
held  in  common;  and  what  it  asked  was  given.  It  asked  for  the  lion's 
share,  and  accompanied  its  demand  with  a  threat,  and  what  it  asked 


636  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

was  given.  Then  it  asked  all  that  we  held  in  common.  It  asked  for  a 
dictatorship,  and  the  accompanying  threat  became  a  defiance.  The  peo 
ple  of  the  North  rose  up  and  said:  "  So  far  and  no  farther  !"  Then 
slavery,  with  fatal  madness,  raised  its  arm  against  the  palladium  which 
cannot  be  touched  with  impunity;  it  urged  into  our  hands  the  sword  of 
self-defence;  with  blind  insolence  it  threw  into  the  face  of  the  nation 
the  final  challenge:  "Kill  me  or  I  will  kill  thee  !"  The  challenge 
could  not  be  declined;  the  nation  refused  to  be  killed,  and  slavery 
had  the  full  benefit  of  its  defiance.  Do  you  not  see  that  this  decree  of 
self-destruction  was  written  by  a  hand  mightier  than  that  of  mortal  man  ? 

And  you  will  stand  up  against  it  ?  What  are  you  about  to  do  ? 
Stop  and  consider  !  Slavery  is  dying  fast.  Its  life  is  ebbing  out  of  a 
thousand  mortal  wounds.  Even  its  nearest  friends  in  rebeldom  are 
standing  around  its  death-bed  in  utter  despair;  even  they  give  it  up. 
Hardly  anything  remains  to  be  done  but  to  close  its  eyelids,  and  to 
write  the  coroner's  verdict:  "  Slavery  having  challenged  the  American 
nation  to  mortal  combat,  killed  itself  by  running  madly  into  the 
sword  of  its  antagonist."  There  it  lies.  And  you — you  would  revive 
it  ?  What?  That  you  should  have  served  it  when  it  was  in  the  fulness 
of  its  power,  that,  with  a  violent  stretch  of  charity,  we  may  understand, 
although  it  revolted  our  hearts.  But  to  revive  it  when  it  is  dying! 
To  think  of  galvanizing  into  new  life  the  hideous  carcass  whose  vi 
tality  is  being  extinguished  by  the  hand  of  fate  !  To  attempt  to  fasten 
anew  and  artificially  upon  the  nation  a  curse  of  which  for  a  century 
she  longed  in  vain  to  be  rid,  and  which  at  last  is  being  wiped  out  by 
the  great  process  of  providential  retribution  !  To  resuscitate  and 
nurse  to  new  power  of  mischief  the  traitress  that  fell  in  an  attempt  to 
assassinate  the  republic  !  Revive  slavery  in  the  midst  of  the  nineteenth 
century  ! 

Have  you  considered  the  enormity  of  the  undertaking  !  Look  around 
you  !  You  see  a  great  republic  purified  of  her  blackest  stain,  which 
sent  a  blush  of  shame  to  her  cheeks  when  the  world  abroad  pointed  to 
it;  you  see  the  heart  of  a  noble  people  relieved  of  the  galling  burden 
of  wrong  and  guilt;  you  see  the  nations  of  the  world  stretching  out  to 
us  their  brotherly  hands  and  cheering  us  on  with  their  inspiriting  ac 
clamations;  from  the  downtrodden  and  degraded  on  earth  to  the  very 
angels  in  heaven  you  hear  all  good  and  generous  hearts  join  in  swell 
ing  chorus  of  gratitude  and  joy,  for  at  last  the  great  iniquity  is  tum 
bling  down — and  now  strike' heaven  and  earth  in  the  face.  Now 
poison  the  future  of  the  republic  again,  now  imperil  the  life  of  the 
nation  again  and  revive  it?  Are  you  in  earnest  ?  Here  we  stand  be 
fore  an  atrocity  so  appalling  that  we  seek  m  vain  for  a  parallel  on 
the  darkest  pages  of  history;  we  search  in  vain  the  darkest  corners 
of  the  human  heart  to  find  a  motive  or  reason  that  might  excuse  a 
crime  so  ridiculous  for  its  folly,  a  folly  so  disgraceful  for  its  wicked 
ness. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  637 

But,  thank  God,  it  is  impossible  !  You  think  you  can  stem  the 
irresistible  current  of  events  with  your  contrivances  of  political  leger 
demain,  with  your  peace-cry,  which  is  treason,  and  your  war-cry,  which 
is  fraud;  with  your  hypocritical  protests  against  a  tyranny  which  docs 
not  exist,  and  your  artful  imposition  of  a  "  Union  as  it  was,"  and  cannot 
again  be  !  With  these  pigmy  weapons  you  think  you  can  avert  the 
sweep  of  gigantic  forces  !  Poor  schemers,  you  might  as  well  try  to 
bring  a  railroad  train,  running  at  full  speed,  back  to  its  starting-point, 
by  butting  your  little  heads  against  the  locomotive.  You  might  as 
well  try  to  catch  in  your  arms  the  falling  waters  of  the  Niagara  in  the 
midst  of  the  cataract,  to  carry  them  back  to  their  source.  In  vain 
you  sacrifice  your  honor  for  what  is  infamous.  In  vain  you  jeopardize 
the  life  of  the  nation  for  what  is  dead  !  The  doom  of  your  cause  is 
written  in  the  stars.  If  you  love  yourselves,  and  want  to  secure  the 
respect  of  your  children,  then,  I  beseech  you,  leave  the  scandalous 
and  hopeless  task  to  the  ignorant  and  brainless,  who  may  show  as  an 
excuse  for  the  mad  attempt,  the  weakness  of  their  minds;  and  to  those 
hardened  villains  who  have  become  as  insensible  to  the  secret  lash 
of  conscience  as  to  the  open  contempt  of  mankind.  But  if  you  will 
not,  then  happy  those  of  you  whose  names  will  sink  into  utter  ob 
livion,  for  only  they  will  escape  the  ignominious  distinction  of  becom 
ing  a  mark  for  the  detestation  of  posterity. 

Revive  slavery  in  the  midst  of  the  nineteenth  century !  And  you 
dare  to  hope  that  the  American  people  will  aid  in  this  crazy  attempt? 
In  this  crime  against  justice,  liberty  and  civilization?  in  this  treason 
against  future  generations  ?  You  dare  to  expect  the  American  nation 
to  commit  suicide  that  slavery  may  live  ?  Poor  man,  desist !  You  are 
undone.  You  do  not  seem  to  know  that  he  must  fail  who  appeals  to 
the  cowardice  of  the  American  people.  Step  out  of  the  way  of  the 
nation  who  marches  with  firm  step  and  a  proud  heart  after  the  martial 
drum-beat  of  her  destiny.  She  feels  that  the  struggle  of  ages  com 
presses  itself  into  the  portentous  crisis  of  this  hour.  It  is  for  coming 
centuries  she  fights;  and  already  she  sees  before  her  what  was  once 
only  a  patriotic  dream  rise  into  magnificent,  sunlit  reality  !  Liberty  ! 
Liberty  and  Union  !  one  and  inseparable  !  now  and  forever! 


SECOND   INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

March   4,   1865 

FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN  : — At  this  second  appearing  to  take  the  oath 
of  the  Presidential  office,  there  is  less  occasion  for  an  extended  address 
than  there  was  at  the  first.  Then  a  statement  somewhat  in  detail  of  a 


638  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

course  to  be  pursued  seemed  very  fitting  and  proper.  Now,  at  the 
expiration  of  four  years,  during  which  public  declarations  have  been 
constantly  called  forth  on  every  point  and  phase  of  the  great  contest 
which  still  absorbs  the  attention  and  engrosses  the  energies  of  the  na 
tion,  little  that  is  new  could  be  presented. 

The  progress  of  our  arras,  upon  which  all  else  chiefly  depends,  is 
as  well  known  to  the  public  as  to  myself,  and  it  is,  I  trust,  reasonably 
satisfactory  and  encouraging  to  all.  With  high  hope  for  the  future,  no 
prediction  in  regard  to  it  is  ventured. 

On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this  four  years  ago,  all  thoughts 
were  anxiously  directed  to  an  impending  civil  war.  All  dreaded  it, 
all  sought  to  avoid  it.  While  the  inaugural  address  was  being  deliv 
ered  from  this  place,  devoted  altogether  to  saving  the  Union  without 
war,  insurgent  agents  were  in  the  city,  seeking  to  destroy  it  with  war 
— seeking  to  dissolve  the  Union  and  divide  the  effects  by  negotiation. 
Both  parties  deprecated  war,  but  one  of  them  would  make  war  rather 
than  let  the  nation  survive,  and  the  other  would  accept  war  rather  than 
let  it  perish,  and  the  war  came.  One-eighth  of  the  whole  population 
were  colored  slaves,  not  distributed  generally  over  the  Union,  but  lo 
calized  in  the  southern  part  of  it.  These  slaves  constituted  a  peculiar 
and  powerful  interest.  All  knew  that  this  interest  was  somehow  the 
cause  of  the  war.  To  strengthen,  perpetuate,  and  extend  this  interest 
was  the  object  for  which  the  insurgents  would  rend  the  Union  by  war, 
while  the  Government  claimed  no  right  to  do  more  than  to  restrict  the 
territorial  enlargement  of  it. 

Neither  party  expected  for  the  war  the  magnitude  or  the  duration  which 
it  has  already  attained.  Neither  anticipated  that  the  cause  of  the  con 
flict  might  cease,  or  even  before  the  conflict  itself  should  cease.  Each 
looked  for  an  easier  triumph,  and  a  result  less  fundamental  and  as 
tounding. 

Both  read  the  same  Bible  and  pray  to  the  same  God,  and  each  in 
vokes  His  aid  against  the  other.  It  may  seem  strange  that  any  men 
should  dare  to  ask  a  just  God's  assistance  in  wringing  their  bread  from 
the  sweat  of  other  men's  faces,  but  let  us  judge  not,  that  we  be  no' 
judged.  The  prayer  of  both  could  not  be  answered.  That  of  neithc; 
has  been  answered  fully.  The  Almighty  has  His  own  purposes.  Woe 
unto  the  world  because  of  offences,  for  it  must  needs  be  that  offences 
come,  but  \voe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offence  cometh.  If  we  shall 
suppose  that  American  slavery  is  one  of  these  offences  which,  in  the 
providence  of  God,  must  needs  come,  but  which  having  continued 
through  His  appointed  time,  He  now  wills  to  remove,  and  that  He  gives 
to  both  North  and  South  this  terrible  war  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by 
whom  the  offence  came,  shall  we  discern  there  any  departure  from 
those  Divine  attributes  which  the  believers  in  a  living  God  always  as 
cribe  to  Him  ?  Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this 
mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet  if  God  wills  that 


Y    WARD   BEECHER.  639 

it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondsman's  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  crop 
of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with,  the 
sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so,  still  it  must  be  said, 
that  the  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether. 

With  malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in  the 
right  as  God  gives  us  too  see  the  right,  let  us  finish  the  work  we  are 
in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have 
borne  the  battle,  and  for  his  widow  and  his  orphans,  to  do  all  which 
may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  a  lasting  peace  among  ourselves 
and  with  all  nations. 


THE  MARTYR  PRESIDENT. 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Brooklyn^  April  15,  1865. 

u  And  Moses  went  up  from  the  plains  of  Moab,  unto  the  mountain  of  Nebo,  to 
the  top  of  Pisgah,  that  is  over  against  Jericho  ;  and  the  Lord  showed  him  all  the 
land  of  Gilead,  unto  Dan,  and  all  Naphtali,  and  the  land  of  Ephraim,  and  Manas- 
seh,  and  all  the  land  of  Judah.  unto  the  utmost  sea,  and  the  south,  and  the  plain  of 
the  valley  of  Jericho,  the  city  of  palm  trees,  unto  Zoor.  And  the  Lord  said  unto 
him,  this  is  the  land  which  I  swear  unto  Abraham,  unto  Isaac,  and  unto  Jacob,  say 
ing,  I  will  give  it  unto  thy  seed  :  I  have  caused  thee  to  see  it  with  thine  eyes,  but 
thoa  shalt  not  go  over  thither.  So  Moses,  the  servant  of  the  Lord,  died  there  in 
the  land  of  Moab,  according  to  the  word  of  the  Lord." — DEUT.  34  r  1-5. 

THERE  is  no  historic  figure  more  noble  than  that  of  the  Jewish  law 
giver.  After  so  many  thousand  years,  the  figure  of  Moses  is  not  di 
minished,  but  stands  up  against  the  background  of  early  days,  distinct 
and  individual  as  if  he  had  lived  but  yesterday.  There  is  scarcely 
another  event  in  history  more  touching  than  his  death.  He  had 
borne  the  great  burdens  of  state  for  forty  years,  shaped  the  Jews  to 
a  nation,  filled  out  their  civil  and  religious  polity,  administered  their 
laws,  guided  their  steps,  or  dwelt  with  them  in  all  their  journeyings 
in  the  wilderness;  had  mourned  in  their  punishment,  kept  step  with 
their  march,  and  led  them  in  wars,  until  the  end  of  their  labors  drew 
nigh.  The  last  stage  was  reached.  Jordan  only  lay  between  them 
and  the  promised  land.  The  promised  land! — oh,  what  yearnings  had 
heaved  his  breast  for  that  divinely  promised  place!  He  had  dreamed 
of  it  by  night,  and  mused  by  day.  It  was  holy  and  endeared  as  God's 
favored  spot.  It  was  to  be  the  cradle  of  an  illustrious  history.  All 
his  long,  laborious,  and  now  weary  life,  he  had  aimed  at  this  as  the 
consummation  of  every  desire,  the  reward  of  every  toil  and  pain. 
Then  came  the  word  of  the  Lord  to  him,  "  Thou  mayest  not  go  over: 
Get  thee  up  into  the  mountain,  look  upon  it,  and  die." 

From  that  silent  summit,  the  hoary  leader  gazed  to  the  north,  to  the 


640  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

south,  to  the  west,  with  hungry  eyes.  The  dim  outlines  rose  up.  The 
hazy  recesses  spoke  of  quiet  valleys  between  the  hills.  With  eager 
longing,  with  sad  resignation,  he  looked  upon  the  promised  land.  It 
was  now  to  him  a  forbidden  }and.  It  was  a  moment's  anguish.  He 
forgot  all  his  personal  wants,  and  drank  in  the  vision  of  his  people's 
home.  His  work  was  done.  There  lay  God's  promise  fulfilled.  There 
was  the  seat  of  coming  Jerusalem  ;  there  the  city  of  Judah's  King ; 
the  sphere  of  judges  and  prophets  ;  the  mount  of  sorrow  and  salva 
tion;  the  nest  whence  were  to  fly  blessings  innumerable  to  all  man 
kind.  Joy  chased  sadness  from  every  feature,  and  the  prophet  laid 
him  down  and  died. 

Again  a  great  leader  of  the  people  has  passed  through  toil,  sorrow, 
battle,  and  war,  and  come  near  to  the  promised  land  of  peace,  into 
which  he  might  not  pass  over.  Who  shall  recount  our  martyr's  suf 
ferings  for  this  people?  Since  the  November  of  1860,  his  horizon 
has  been  black  with  storms.  By  day  and  by  night,  he  trod  a  way 
of  danger  and  darkness.  On  his  shoulders  rested  a  govern 
ment  dearer  to  him  than  his  own  life.  At  its  integrity  millions  of  men 
were  striking  at  home.  Upon  this  government  foreign  eyes  lowered. 
It  stood  like  a  lone  island  in  a  sea  full  of  storms;  and  every  tide  and 
wave  seemed  eager  to  devour  it.  Upon  thousands  of  hearts  great 
sorrows  and  anxieties  have  rested,  but  not  on  one  such,  and  in  such 
measure,  as  upon  that  simple,  truthful,  noble  soul,  our  faithful  and 
sainted  Lincoln.  Never  rising  to  the  enthusiasm  of  more  impas 
sioned  natures  in  hours  of  hope,  and  never  sinking  with  the  mercu 
rial  in  hours  of  defeat  to  the  depths  of  despondency,  he  held  on  with 
unmovable  patience  and  fortitude,  putting  caution  against  hope,  that 
it  might  not  be  premature,  and  hope  against  caution,  that  it  might  not 
yield  to  dread  and  danger.  He  wrestled  ceaselessly,  through  four 
black  and  dreadful  purgatorial  years,  wherein  God  was  cleansing  the 
sin  of  his  people  as  by  fire. 

At  last,  the  watcher  beheld  the  gray  dawn  for  the  country.  The 
mountains  began  to  give  forth  their  forms  from  out  the  darkness;  and 
the  East  came  rushing  toward  us  with  arms  full  of  joy  for  all  our  sor 
rows.  Then  it  was  for  him  to  be  glad  exceedingly,  that  had  sorrowed 
immeasurably.  Peace  could  bring  to  no  other  heart  such  joy,  such£ 
rest,  such  honor,  such  trust,  such  gratitude.  But  he  looked  upon  it 
as  Moses  looked  upon  the  promised  land.  Then  the  wail  of  a  nation 
proclaimed  that  he  had  gone  from  among  us.  Not  thine  the  sorrow, 
but  ours,  sainted  soul.  Thou  hast  indeed  entered  the  promised  land, 
while  we  are  yet  on  the  march.  To  us  remains  the  rocking  of  the 
deep,  the  storm  upon  the  land,  days  of  duty  and  nights  of  watching; 
but  thou  art  sphered  high  above  all  darkness  and  fear,  beyond  all  sor 
row  and  weariness.  Rest,  O  weary  heart !  Rejoice  exceedingly, 
thou  that  hast  enough  suffered  !  Thou  hast  beheld  Him  who  invisibly 
led  thee  in  this  great  wilderness.  Thou  standest  among  the  elect. 


HEXRY    WARD  BEECUER.  641 

Around  thee  are  the  royal  men  that  have  ennobled  human  life  in 
every  age.  Kingly  art  thou,  with  glory  on  thy  brow  as  a  diadem. 
And  joy  is  upon  thee  for  evermore.  Over  all  this  land,  over  all  the 
little  cloud  of  years  that  now  from  thine  infinite  horizon  moves  back 
as  a  speck,  thou  art  lifted  up  as  high  as  the  star  is  above  the  clouds 
that  hide  us,  but  never  reach  it.  In  the  goodly  company  of  Mount 
Zion  thou  shalt  find  that  rest  which  thou  hast  sorrowing  sought  in 
vain;  and  thy  name,  an  everlasting  name  in  heaven,  shall  flourish  in 
fragrance  and  beauty  as  long  as  men  shall  last  upon  the  earth,  or 
hearts  remain,  to  revere  truth,  fidelity,  and  goodness. 

Never  did  two  such  orbs  of  experience  meet  in  one  hemisphere,  as 
the  joy  and  the  sorrow  of  the  same  week  in  this  land.  The  joy  was 
as  sudden  as  if  no  man  had  expected  it,  and  as  entrancing  as  if  it  had 
fallen  a  sphere  from  heaven.  It  rose  up  over  sobriety,  and  swept  busi 
ness  from  its  moorings,  and  ran  down  through  the  land  in  irresistible 
course.  Men  embraced  each  other  in  brotherhood  that  were  strangers 
in  the  flesh.  They  sang,  or  prayed,  or,  deeper  yet,  many  could  only 
think  thanksgiving  and  weep  gladness.  That  peace  was  sure;  that 
government  was  firmer  than  ever;  that  the  land  was  cleansed  of 
plague;  that  the  ages  were  opening  to  our  footsteps,  and  we  were  to 
begin  a  march  of  blessings;  that  blood  was  staunched,  and  scowling 
enmities  were  sinking  like  storms  beneath  the  horizon;  that  the  dear 
fatherland,  nothing  lost,  much  gained,  was  to  rise  up  in  unexampled 
honor  among  the  nations  of  the  earth — these  thoughts,  and  that  un- 
distinguishable  throng  of  fancies,  and  hopes,  and  desires,  and  yearn 
ings,  that  filled  the  soul  with  tremblings  like  the  heated  air  of  mid 
summer  days — all  these  kindled  up  such  a  surge  of  joy  as  no  words 
may  describe. 

In  one  hour  joy  lay  without  a  pulse,  without  a  gleam,  or  breath.  A 
sorrow  came  that  swept  through  the  land  as  huge  storms  sweep 
through  the  forest  and  field,  rolling  thunder  along  the  sky,  disheveling 
the  flowers,  daunting  every  singer  in  thicket  or  forest,  and  pouring 
blackness  and  darkness  across  the  land  and  up  the  mountains.  Did 
ever  so  many  hearts,  in  so  brief  a  time,  touch  two  such  boundless 
feelings?  It  was  the  uttermost  of  joy;  it  was  the  uttermost  of  sorrow 
— noon  and  midnight,  without  a  space  between. 

The  blow  brought  not  a  sharp  pang.  It  was  so  terrible  that  at  first 
it  stunned  sensibility.  Citizens  were  like  men  awakened  at  midnight 
by  an  earthquake,  and  bewildered  to  find  everything  that  they  were 
accustomed  to  trust  wavering  and  falling.  The  very  earth  was  no 
longer  solid.  The  first  feeling  was  the  least.  Men  waited  to  get 
straight  to  feel.  They  wandered  in  the  streets  as  if  groping  after  some 
impending  dread,  or  undeveloped  sorrow,  or  some  one  to  tell  them 
what  ailed  them.  They  met  each  other  as  if  each  would  ask  the  other, 
"Am  I  awake,  or  do  I  dream?"  There  was  a  piteous  helplessness. 
String  men  bowed  down  and  wept.  Other  and  common  griefs  be- 


642  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

longed  to  some  one  in  chief:  this  belonged  to  all.  It  was  each  and 
every  man's.  Every  virtuous  household  in  the  land  felt  as  if  its  first 
born  were  gone.  Men  were  bereaved,  and  walked  for  days  as  if  a 
corpse  lay  unburied  in  their  dwellings.  There  was  nothing  else  to 
think  of.  They  could  speak  of  nothing  but  that;  and  yet,  of  that  they 
could  speak  only  falteringly.  All  business  was  laid  aside.  Pleasure 
forgot  to  smile.  The  city  for  nearly  a  week  ceased  to  roar.  The 
great  Leviathan  lay  down,  and  was  still.  Even  avarice  stood  still, 
and  greed  was  strangely  moved  to  generous  sympathy  and  universal 
sorrow.  Rear  to  his  name  monuments,  found  charitable  institutions, 
and  write  his  name  above  their  lintels;  but  no  monument  will  ever 
equal  the  universal,  spontaneous,  and  sublime  sorrow  that  in  a 
moment  swept  down  lines  and  parties,  and  covered  up  animosities, 
and  in  an  hour  brought  a  divided  people  into  unity  of  grief  and  in 
divisible  fellowship  of  anguish. 

For  myself,  I  cannot  yet  command  that  quietness  of  spirit  needed 
for  a  just  and  temperate  delineation  of  a  man  whom  goodness  has 
made  great.  Leaving  that,  if  it  please  God,  to  some  other  occasion, 
I  pass  to  some  considerations,  aside  from  the  martyr  President's 
character,  which  may  be  fit  for  this  hour's  instruction. 

i.  Let  us  not  mourn  that  his  departure  was  so  sudden,  nor  fill  our 
imagination  with  horror  at  its  method.  Men,  long  eluding  and  evad 
ing  sorrow,  when  at  last  they  are  overtaken  by  it,  seem  enchanted, 
and  seek  to  make  their  sorrow  sorrowful  to  the  very  uttermost,  and  to 
bring  out  every  drop  of  suffering  which  they  possibly  can.  This  is 
not  Christian,  though  it  may  be  natural.  When  good  men  pray  for 
deliverance  from  sudden  death,  it  is  only  that  they  may  not  be  plunged 
without  preparation,  all  disrobed,  into  the  presence  of  their  Judge. 
When  one  is  ready  to  depart,  suddenness  of  death  is  a  blessing.  It  is 
a  painful  sight  to  see  a  tree  overthrown  by  a  tornado,  wrenched  from 
its  foundations,  and  broken  down  like  a  weed;  but  it  is  yet  more 
painful  to  see  a  vast  and  venerable  tree  lingering  with  vain  strife 
against  decay,  which  age  and  infirmity  have  marked  for  destruction. 
The  process  by  which  strength  wastes,  and  the  mind  is  obscured,  and 
the  tabernacle  is  taken  down,  is  humiliating  and  painful;  and  it  is  good 
and  grand  when  a  man  departs  to  his  rest  from  out  of  the  midst  of 
duty,  full-armed  and  strong,  with  pulse  beating  time.  For  such  an 
one  to  go  suddenly,  if  he  be  prepared  to  go,  is  but  to  terminate  a  most 
noble  life  in  its  most  noble  manner.  Mark  the  words  of  the  Master  : 

"  Let  your  loins  be  girded  about,  and  your  lights  burning;  and  ye 
yourselves  like  unto  men  that  wait  for  their  lord,  when  he  will  return 
from  the  wedding  ;  that  when  he  cometh  and  knocketh  they  may  open 
unto  him  immediately.  Blessed  are  those  servants  who'm  the  lord 
when  he  cometh  shall  find  watching." 

Xot  they  that  go  in  a  stupor,  but  they  that  go  with  all  their  powers 
abo;:i  I  hem,  and  vide  awake,  to  meet  their  Master,  as  to  a  wedding. 


HENRY    WARD   BEE  CHER.  643 

are  blessed.  He  died  watching.  He  died  with  his  armor  on.  In  the 
midst  of  hours  of  labors,  in  the  very  heart  of  patriotic  consultations, 
just  returned  from  camps  and  councils,  he  was  stricken  down.  No 
fever  dried  his  blood.  No  slow  waste  consumed  him.  All  at  once,  in 
full  strength  and  manhood,  with  his  girdle  tight  about  him,  he  depart 
ed,  and  walks  with  God. 

Nor  was  the  manner  of  his  death  more  shocking,  if  we  divest  it  of 
the  malignity  of  the  motives  which  caused  it.  The  mere  instrument 
itself  is  not  one  that  we  should  shrink  from  contemplating.  Have  not 
thousands  of  soldiers  fallen  on  the  field  of  battle  by  the  bullets  of  the 
enemy  ?  Is  being  killed  in  battle  counted  to  be  a  dreadful  mode  of 
dying  ?  It  was  as  if  he  had  died  in  battle.  Do  not  all  soldiers  that 
must  fall  ask  to  depart  in  the  hour  of  battle  and  victory  ?  He  went  in 
the  hour  of  victory. 

There  has  not  been  a  poor  drummer-boy  in  all  this  war  that  has 
fallen  for  whom  the  great  heart  of  Lincoln  would  not  have  bled;  there 
has  not  been  one  private  soldier,  without  note  or  name,  slain  among 
thousands,  and  hid  in  the  pit  among  hundreds,  without  even  the  me 
morial  of  a  separate  burial,  for  whom  the  President  would  not  have 
wept.  He  was  a  man  from  the  common  people,  that  never  forgot  his 
kind.  And  now  that  he  who  might  not  bear  the  march,  and  toil,  and 
battles  with  these  humble  citizens  has  been  called  to  die  by  the  bullet, 
as  they  were,  do  you  not  feel  that  there  was  a  peculiar  fitness  to  his 
nature  and  life,  tint  he  should  in  death  be  joined  with  them,  in  a  final 
common  experience,  to  whom  he  had  been  joined  in  all  his  sympa 
thies. 

For  myself,  when  any  event  is  susceptible  of  a  higher  and  nobler 
garnishing,  I  know  not  what  that  disposition  is  that  should  seek  to 
drag  it  down  to  the  depths  of  gloom,  and  write  it  all  over  with  the 
scrawls  of  horror  or  fear.  I  let  the  light  of  nobler  thoughts  fall  upon 
his  departure,  and  bless  God  that  there  is  some  argument  of  consola 
tion  in  the  matter  and  manner  of  his  going,  as  there  was  in  the  matter 
and  manner  of  his  staying. 

2.  This  blow  was  but  the  expiring  rebellion.  As  a  miniature  gives 
all  the  form  and  features  of  its  subject,  so,  epitomized  in  this  foul  act, 
we  find  the  whole  nature  and  disposition  of  slavery.  It  begins  in  a 
wanton  destruction  of  all  human  rights,  and  in  a  desecration  of  all  the 
sanctities  of  heart  and  home;  and  it  is  the  universal  enemy  of  man 
kind,  and  of  God,  who  made  man.  It  can  be  maintained  only  at  the 
sacrifice  of  every  right  and  moral  feeling  in  its  abettors  and  uphold 
ers.  I  deride  the  man  that  points  me  to  any  man  bred  amid  slavery, 
believing  in  it,  and  willingly  practicing  it,  and  tells  me  that  he  is  a 
man.  I  shall  find  saints  in  perdition  sooner  than  I  shall  find  true 
manhood  under  the  influences  of  so  accursed  a  system  as  this.  It  is  a 
two  edged  sword,  cutting  both  ways,  violently  destroying  manhood  in 
the  oppressed,  and  insidiously  destroying  manhood  in  the  oppressor. 


644  A  MKRl C  / A"  PA-  7 'RIO  TISM. 

The  problem  is  solved,  the  demonstration  is  completed,  in  our  land. 
Slavery  wastes  its  victims;  and  it  destroys  the  masters.  It  destroys 
public  morality,  and  the  possibility  of  it.  It  corrupts  manhood  in  its 
very  centre  and  elements.  Communities  in  which  it  exists  are  not  to 
be  trusted.  They  are  rotten.  Nor  can  you  find  timber  grown  in  this 
accursed  soil  of  iniquity  that  is  fit  to  build  our  ship  of  state,  or  lay  the 
foundation  of  our  households.  The  patriotism  that  grows  up  under 
this  blight,  when  put  to  proof,  is  selfish  and  brittle;  and  he  that  leans 
upon  it  shall  be  pierced.  The  honor  that  grows  up  in  the  midst  of 
slavery  is  not  honor,  but  a  bastard  quality  that  usurps  the  place  of  its 
better,  only  to  disgrace  the  name  of  honor.  Arid,  as  long  as  there  is 
conscience,  or  reason,  or  Christianity,  the  honor  that  slavery  begets 
will  be  be  a  bye-word  and  a  hissing.  The  whole  moral  nature  of  men 
reared  to  familiarity  and  connivance  with  slavery  is  death-smitten. 
The  needless  rebellion;  the  treachery  of  its  leaders  to  oaths  and 
rolemn  trusts;  their  violation  of  the  commonest  principles  of  fidelity, 
sitting  in  senates,  in  councils,  in  places  of  public  confidence,  only  to 
betray  and  to  destroy;  the  long,  general,  and  unparalleled  cruelty  to 
prisoners,  without  provocation,  and  utterly  without  excuse:  the  un 
reasoning  malignity  and  fierceness — these  all  mark  the  symptoms  of 
that  disease  of  slavery  which  is  a  deadly  poison  to  soul  and  body. 

1.  I   do  not  say  that  there  are  not  single  natures,  here  and  there, 
scattered  through  the  vast  wilderness  which  is  covered  with  this  poi 
sonous  vine,  who  escape   the   poison.     There  are,  but  they  are  not  to 
be    found    among   the    men    that  believe  in   it,   and  that   have    been 
moulded  by  it.     They  are  the  exceptions.     Slavery  is  itself  barbarity. 
That  nation  which  cherishes  it  is  barbarous;  and  no  outward  tinsel  or 
glitter   can   redeem  it  from  the  charge  of  barbarism.     And  it  was  fit 
that  its   expiring  blow  should  be  such  as  to  take  away  from  men  the 
last  forbearance,  the  last  pity,  and  fire  the  soul  with  an  invincible  de 
termination  that  the  breeding-ground  of  such  mischiefs  and  monsters 
shall  be  utterly  and  forever  destroyed. 

2.  We   needed  not  that  he  should  put  on  paper  that  he  believed  in 
slavery,    who,    with    treason,    with    murder,    with    cruelty    infernal, 
hovered  around   that  majestic  man  to  destroy  his  life.      He  was  him 
self  but  the  long  sting  with  which  slavery  struck  at  liberty;  and  he 
carried   the   poison  that    belonged   to  slavery.     And  as  long  as  this 
nation  lasts,  it  will  never  bo  -forgotten  that  we  have  had  one  martyred 
President — never  !     Never,  while  time  lasts,  while  heaven  lasts,  while 
hell  rocks  and  groans,  will  it  be  forgotten  that  slavery,  by  its  minions, 
slew  him,  and,  in  slaying  him,  made  manifest   its  whole   nature  and 
tendency. 

3.  This  blow  was  aimed  at  the  life  of  tiie  Government  and  of  the 
nation.     Lincoln  was  slain;  America  was  meant.     The  man  was  cast 
down;  the  Government  was  smitten  at.     The  President  was  killed:  it 
was  national  life,   breathing  freedom,  and  meaning  beneficence,  that 


HENRY    U'AKD   BF.ECIIF.R.  645 

was  sought.  He,  the  man  of  Illinois,  the  private  man,  divested  of 
robes  and  the  insignia  of  authority,  representing  nothing  but  his  per 
sonal  self,  might  have  been  hated;  but  it  was  not  that  that  ever  would 
have  called  forth  the  murderer's  blow.  It  was  because  he  stood  in 
the  place  of  government,  representing  government,  and  a  government 
that  represented  right  and  liberty,  that  he  was  singled  out. 

This,  then,  is  a  crime  against  universal  government.  It  is  not  a 
blow  at  the  foundations  of  our  government,  more  than  at  the  founda 
tions  of  the  English  Government,  of  the  French  Government,  of  every 
compacted  and  well-organized  government.  It  was  a  crime  against 
mankind.  The  whole  world  will  repudiate  and  stigmatize  it  as  a  deed 
without  a  shade  of  redeeming  light.  For  this  was  not  the  oppressed, 
goaded  to  extremity,  turning  on  his  oppressor.  Not  the  shadow  of  a 
cloud,  even,  has  rested  on  the  south,  of  wrong;  and  they  knew  it  right 
well. 

In  a  council  held  in  the  City  of  Charleston,  just  preceding  to  the 
attack  on  Fort  Sumter,  two  Commissions  were  appointed  to  go  to 
Washington;  one  on  the  part  of  the  army  from  Fort  Sumter,  and  one 
on  the  part  of  the  Confederates.  The  lieutenant  that  was  designated 
to  go  for  us  said  it  seemed  to  him  that  it  would  be  of  little  use  for  him 
to  go,  as  his  opinion  was  immovably  fixed  in  favor  of  maintaining  the 
Government  in  whose  service  he  was  employed.  Then  Gov.  Pickens 
took  him  aside,  detaining,  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  the  railroad  train  that 
was  to  convey  them  on  their  errand.  He  opened  to  him  the  whole 
plan  and  secret  of  the  Southern  conspiracy;  and  said  to  him,  distinctly 
and  repeatedly  (for  it  was  needful,  he  said,  to  lay  aside  disguises),  that 
the  South  had  never  been  wronged,  and  that  all  their  pretences  of  griev 
ance  in  the  matter  of  tariffs,  or  anything  else,  were  invalid.  "  But," 
said  he,  "we  must  carry  the  people  with  us;  and  we  allege  these 
things,  as  all  statesmen  do  many  things  that  they  do  not  believe,  be 
cause  they  are  the  only  instruments  by  which  the  people  can  be  man 
aged."  He  then  and  there  declared  that  the  two  sections  of  country 
were  so  antagonistic  in  ideas  and  policies  that  they  could  not  live  to 
gether,  that  it  was  foreordained  that  Northern  and  Southern  men  must 
keep  apart  on  account  of  differences  in  ideas  and  policies,  and  that  all 
the  pretences  of  the  South  about  wrongs  suffered  were  but  pretences, 
as  they  very  well  knew.  This  is  testimony  which  was  given  by  one 
of  the  leaders  in  the  rebellion,  and  which  will,  probably,  ere  long,  be 
given  under  hand  and  seal  to  the  public.  So  the  South  has  never  had 
wrong  visited  upon  it  except  by  that  which  was  inherent  in  it. 

This  was  not,  then,  the  avenging  hand  of  one  goaded  by  tyranny. 
It  was  not  a  despot  turned  on  by  his  victim.  It  was  the  venomous 
hatred  of  liberty  wielded  by  an  avowed  advocate  of  slavery.  .And, 
though  there  may  have  been  cases  of  murder  in  which  there  were 
shades  of  palliation,  yet  this  murder  was  without  provocation,  without 
temptation,  without  reason,  sprung  from  the  fury  of  a  heart  cankered 


646  A  J//;'  RICA  N  P.  1  TRIO  TISM. 

to  all  that  was  just  and  good,  and  corrupted  by  all  that  was  wicked  and 
foul. 

4.  The  blow  has  signally  failed.     The   cause  is   not  stricken;    it  i; 
strengthened.     This  nation  has  dissolved — but  in  tears  only.    It  stands 
four-square,  more    solid,   to-day,  than   any  pyramid  in   Egypt.     This 
people    are    neither  wasted,  nor  daunted,  nor  disordered.      Men  hate 
slavery  and  love  liberty  \vith  stronger  hate  and  love  to-day  than  ever 
before.     The  Government  is  not  weakened,  it  is  made  stronger.    How 
naturally  and  easily  were  the  ranks  closed  !    Another  steps  forward,  in 
I  lie  hour  that  the  one  fell,  to  take  his   place  and  his  mantle;  and  I 
avow  my  belief  that  he  will  be  found  a  man  true  to  every  instinct  of 
liberty;  true  to  the  whole  trust  that  is  reposed  in  him;  vigilant  of  the 
Constitution;  careful  of  the  laws;  wise  for  liberty,  in  that  he  himself, 
through  his  life,  has  known  what  it  was  to  suffer  from  the  stings  of 
slavery,  and  to  prize  liberty  from  bitter  personal  experiences. 

Where  could  the  head  of  government  in  any  monarchy  be  smitten 
down  by  the  hand  of  an  assassin,  and  the  funds  not  quiver  or  fall  one- 
half  of  one  per  cent  ?  After  a  long  period  of  national  disturbance, 
after  four  years  of  drastic  war,  after  tremendous  drafts  on  the  resour 
ces  of  the  country,  in  the  height  and  top  of  our  burdens,  the  heart  of 
this  people  is  such  that  now,  when  the  head  of  government  is  stricken 
down,  the  public  funds  do  not  waver,  but  stand  as  the  grarite  ribs  in 
our  mountains. 

Republican  institutions  have  been  vindicaced  in  this  experience  as 
they  never  were  before;  and  the  whole  history  of  the  last  four  years, 
rounded  up  by  this  cruel  stroke,  seems,  in  the  providence  of  God,  to 
have  been  clothed,  now,  with  an  illustration,  with  a  sympathy,  with 
an  aptness,  and  with  a  significance,  such  as  we  never  could  have  ex 
pected  nor  imagined.  God,  I  think,  has  said,  by  the  voice  of  this  event, 
to  all  nations  of  the  earth,  "  Republican  liberty,  based  upon  true 
Christianity,  is  firm  as  the  foundation  of  the  globe." 

5.  Even  he  who  now  sleeps  has,  by  this  event,  been  clothed  with 
new  influence.     Dead,  he  speaks  to  men  who  now  willingly  hear  what 
before  they  refused  to  listen  to.     Now  his  simple  and  weighty  words 
will  be  gathered  like   those  of  Washington,  and   your   children,  and 
your  children's  children,  shall  be  taught  to  ponder  the   simplicity  and 
deep  wisdom  of  utterances  which,  in  their  time,  passed,  in  party  heat, 
as  idle  words.     Men  will  receive  a  new  impulse  of  patriotism  for  his 
sake   and  will  guard  with  zeal  the  whole  country  which   he   loved  so 
well.     I  swear  you,  on  the  altar  of  his  memory,  to  be  more  faithful  to 
the  country  for  which  he  has  perished.     They  will,  as  they  follow  his 
hearse,  swear  a  new  hatred  to  that  slavery  against  which  he  warred, 
and  which,  in  vanquishing  him,  has  made  him  a  martyr  and  a  con 
queror.     I  swear  you,  by  the  memory  of  this  martyr,  to  hate  slavery 
with  an  unappeasable  hatred.     They  will  admire  and  imitate  the  firm 
ness  of  this  man,  his  inflexible  conscience  for  the  right;  and  yet  his 


GEORGE  BANCROFT.  647 

gentleness,  as  tender  as  a  woman's,  his  moderation  of  spirit,  which, 
not  all  the  heat  of  party  could  inflame,  nor  all  the  jars  and  disturbances 
of  his  country  shake  out  of  its  place.  I  swear  you  to  an  emulation  of 
his  justice,  his  moderation,  and  his  mercy. 

You  I  can  comfort;  but  how  can  I  speak  to  thp,t  twilight  million  to 
whom  his  name  was  as  the  name  of  an  angel  of  God?  There  will  be 
wailing  in  places  which  no  minister  shall  be  able  to  reach.  When,  in 
hovel  and  in  cot,  in  wood  and  in  wilderness,  in  the  field  throughout 
the  South,  the  dusky  children,  who  looked  upon  him  as  that  Moses 
whom  God  sent  before  them  to  lead  them  out  of  the  land  of  Donciago, 
learn  that  he  has  fallen,  who  shall  comfort  them  ?  O,  thou  Shepherd 
of  Israel,  that  didst  comfort  thy  people  of  old,  to  thy  care  we  commit 
the  helpless,  the  long-wronged,  and  grieved. 

And  now  the  martyr  is  moving  in  triumphal  march,  mightier  than 
when  alive.  The  nation  rises  up  at  every  stage  of  his  coming.  Cities 
and  states  are  his  pall-bearers,  and  the  cannon  beats  the  hours  with 
solemn  progression.  Dead,  dead,  dead,  he  yet  speaketh  !  Is  Wash 
ington  dead  ?  Is  Hampden  dead  ?  Is  David  dead  ?  Is  any  man  that 
ever  was  fit  to  live  dead?  Disenthralled  of  flesh,  and  risen  in  the  un 
obstructed  sphere  where  passion  never  comes,  he  begins  his  illimitable 
work.  His  life  now  is  grafted  upon  the  infinite,  and  will  be  fruitful 
as  no  earthly  life  can  be.  Pass  on,  thou  that  hast  overcome  !  Your  sor 
rows,  o':i  people,  are  his  peace  !  Your  bells,  and  bands,  and  muffled 
drums,  sound  triumph  in  his  ear.  Wail  and  weep  here;  God  made  it 
echo  joy  and  triumph  there.  Pass  on  ' 

Four  years  ago,  oh,  Illinois,  we  took  from  your  midst  an  untried 
man,  and  from  among  the  people.  We  return  him  to  you  a  mighty 
conquerer.  Not  thine  any  more,  but  the  nation's;  not  ours,  but  the 
world's.  Give  him  place,  oh,  ye  prairies  !  In  the  midst  of  this  great 
continent  his  dust  shall  rest,  a  sacred  treasure  to  myriads  who  shall 
pilgrim  to  that  shrine  to  kindle  anew  their  zeal  and  patriotism.  Ye 
winds  that  move  over  the  mighty  places  of  the  West,  chant  his  requiem  ! 
Ye  people,  behold  a  martyr  whose  blood,  as  so  many  articulate  words, 
pleads  for  fidelity,  for  law,  for  liberty  ! 


THE   DEATH    OF   LINCOLN. 
GEORGE   BANCROFT. 

New   York,  April,  1865. 

Our  grief  and  horror  at  the  crime  which  has  clothed  the  continent  iti 
mourning,  find  no  adequate  expression  in  words,  and  no  relief  in  tears. 
The  President  of  the  United  States  of  America  has  fallen  by  the  hands 
oi  ^n  assassin.  Neither  the  office  with  which  he  was  invested  by  the 


648  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

approved  choice  of  a  mighty  people,  nor  the  most  simple-hearted 
kindliness  of  nature,  could  save  him  from  the  tiendish  passions  of 
relentless  fanaticism.  The  wailings  of  the  millions  attend  his  remains 
as  they  are  borne  in  solemn  procession  over  our  great  rivers,  along 
the  seaside,  beyond  the  mountains,  across  the  prairie,  to  their  resting- 
place  in  the  valley*  of  the  Mississippi.  His  funeral  knell  vibrates 
through  the  world,  and  the  friends  of  freedom  of  every  tongue  and  in 
every  clime  are  his  mourners. 

Too  few  days  have  passed  away  since  Abraham  Lincoln  stood  in 
the  flush  of  vigorous  manhood,  to  permit  any  attempt  at  an  analysis 
of  his  character  or  an  exposition  of  his  career.  We  find  it  hard  to  be 
lieve  that  his  large  eyes,  which  in  their  softness  and  beauty  expressed 
nothing  but  benevolence  and  gentleness,  are  closed  in  death  ;  we 
almost  look  for  the  pleasant  smile  that  brought  out  more  vividly  the 
earnest  cast  of  his  features,  which  were  serious  even  to  sadness.  A 
few  years  ago  he  was  a  village  attorney,  engaged  in  the  support  of  a 
rising  family,  unknown  to  fame,  scarcely  named  beyond  his  neighbor 
hood;  his  administration  made  him  the  most  conspicuous  man  in  his 
country,  and  drew  on  him  first  the  astonished  gaze,  and  then  the 
respect  and  admiration  of  the  world. 

Those  who  come  after  us  will  decide  how  much  of  the  wonderful 
results  of  his  public  career  is  due  to  his  own  good  common  sense,  his 
shrewd  sagacity,  readiness  of  wit,  quick  interpretation  of  the  public 
mind,  his  rare  combination  of  fixedness  and  pliancy,  his  steady  ten- 
dencv  of  purpose;  how  much  to  the  American  people,  who,  as  he 
walked  with  them  side  by  side,  -inspired  him  with  their  own  wisdom 
and  energy;  and  how  much  to  the  overruling  laws  of  the  moral  world, 
by  which  the  selfishness  of  evil  is  made  to  defeat  itself.  But  after 
every  allowance,  it  will  remain  that  members  of  the  government 
which  preceded  his  administration  opened  the  gates  to  treason,  and  he 
closed  them;  that  when  he  went  to  Washington  the  ground  on  which 
he  trod  shook  under  his  feet,  and  he  left  the  Republic  on  a  solid  foun 
dation;  that  traitors  had  seized  public  forts  and  arsenals,  and  he  re 
covered  them  for  the  United  States,  to  whom  they  belonged;  that  the 
capital,  which  he  found  the  abode  of  slaves,  is  now  the  home  only  of 
the  free;  that  the  boundless  public  domain  which  was  grasped  at,  and, 
in  a  great  measure,  held,  for  the  diffusion  of  slavery,  is  now  irrevoca-j 
bly  devoted  to  freedom;  that  then  men  talked  a  jargon  of  a  balance  of! 
power  in  a  republic  between  slave  states  and  free  states,  and  now  the 
foolish  words  are  blown  away  forever  by  the  breath  of  Maryland,  Mis 
souri  and  Tennessee;  that  a  terrible  cloud  of  political  heresy  rose  from 
the  abyss,  threatening  to  hide  the  light  of  the  sun, and  under  its  darkness  a 
rebellion  was  growing  into  indefinable  proportions ;  now  the  atmosphere 
is  purer  than  ever  before,  and  the  insurrection  is  vanishing  away;  the 
country  is  cast  into  another  mould,  and  the  gigantic  system  of  wrong, 
which  had  been  the  work  of  more  than  two  centuries,  is  dashed  down, 


GKOKGI-:   £  A. VCR  OFT.  6^9 

we  hope,  forever.  And  as  to  himself,  personally:  he  was  then  scoffed 
at  by  the  proud  as  unfit  for  his  station,  and  now  against  usage  of  later 
years  and  in  spite  of  numerous  competitors  he  was  the  unbiased  and 
undoubted  choice  of  the  American  people  for  a  second  term  of  service. 
Through  all  the  mad  business  of  treason  he  retained  the  sweetness  of 
a  most  placable  disposition;  and  the  slaughter  of  myriads  of  the  best 
on  ihe  battle-field,  and  the  more  terrible  destruction  of  our  men  in 
captivity  by  the  slow  torture  of  exposure  and  starvation,  had  never 
been  able  to  provoke  him  into  harboring  one  vengeful  feeling  or  one 
purpose  of  cruelty. 

How  shall  the  nation  most  completely  show  its  sorrow  at  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  death?  How  shall  it  best  honor  his  memory?  There  can  be 
bui  one  answer.  He  was  struck  down  when  he  was  highest  in  its 
service,  and  in  strict  conformity  with  duty  was  engaged  in  carrying 
out  principles  affecting  its  life,  its  good  name,  and  its  relations  to  the 
cause  of  freedom  and  the  progress  of  mankind.  Grief  must  take  the 
character  of  action,  and  breathe  itself  forth  in  the  assertion  of  the 
policy  to  which  he  fell  a  victim.  The  standard  which  he  held  in  his 
hand  must  be  uplifted  again  higher  and  more  firmly  than  before,  and 
must  be  carried  on  to  triumph  Above  everything  else,  his  procla 
mation  cf  the  first  day  of  January,  1863,  declaring  throughout  the 
parts  of  the  country  in  rebellion,  the  freedom  of  all  persons  who  had 
been  held  as  slaves,  must  be  affirmed  and  maintained. 

Events,  as  they  rolled  onward,  have  removed  every  doubt  of  the  le 
gality  and  binding  force  of  that  proclamation  The  country  and  the 
rebel  government  have  each  laid  claim  to  the  public  service  of  the 
slave,  and  yet  but  one  of  the  two  can  have  a  rightful  claim  to  such 
service.  That  rightful  claim  belongs  to  the  United  States,  because 
every  one  born  on  their  soil,  with  the  few  exceptions  of  the  children 
of  travellers  and  transient  residents,  owes  them  a  primary  allegiance. 
Every  one  so  born  has  been  counted  among  those  represented  in  Con 
gress;  every  slave  has  ever  been  represented  in  Congress;  imperfectly 
and  wrongly  it  may  be — but  still  has  been  counted  and  represented. 
.  The  slave  born  on  our  soil  always  owed  allegiance  to  the  general  gov 
ernment.  It  may  in  time  past  have  been  a  qualified  allegiance,  mani 
fested  through  his  master,  as  the  allegiance  of  a  ward  through  its 
guardian,  or  of  an  infant  through  its  parent.  But  when  the  master 
became  false  to  his  allegiance,  the  slave  stood  face  to  face  with  his 
country;  and  his  allegiance,  which  ma'v  before  have  been  a  qualified 
one,  became  direct  and  immediate.  His  chains  fell  off,  and  he  rose  at 
once  in  the  presence  of  the  nation,  bound,  like  the  rest  of  us,  to  its 
defence.  Mr.  Lincoln's  proclamation  did  but  take  notice  of  the  al 
ready  existing  right  of  the  bondman  to  freedom.  The  treason  of  the 
master  made  it  r.  public  crime  ^or  the  slave  to  continue  his  obedience  ; 
vhe  treason  of  a  state  set  free  the  collective  bondmen  of  that  state. 

This  doctrine  is   supported   by  the  analogy  of  precedents.     In  the 


650  AMERICAN  l^ATRIOTISM. 

times  of  feudalism  the  treason  of  the  lord  of  the  manor  deprived  him 
of  his  serfs;  the  spurious  feudalism  that  existed  among  us  differs  in 
many  respects  from  the  feudalism  of  the  middle  ages,  but  so  far  the 
precedent  runs  parallel  with  the  present  case;  for  treason  the  master 
then,  for  treason  the  master  now,  loses  his  slaves. 

In  the  middle  ages  the  sovereign  appointed  another  lord  over  the 
serfs  and  the  lands  which  they  cultivated  ;  in  our  day  the  sovereign 
makes  them  masters  of  their  own  persons,  lords  over  themselves. 

It  has  been  said  that  we  are  at  war,  and  that  emancipation  is  not  a 
belligerent  right.  The  objection  disappears  before  analysis.  In  a 
war  between  independent  powers  the  invading  foreigner  invites  to  his 
standard  all  who  will  give  him  aid,  whether  bond  or  free,  and  he  re 
wards  them  according  to  his  ability  and  his  pleasure,  with  gifts  or  free 
dom  :  but  when  at  a  peace,  he  withdraws  from  the  invaded  country, 
he  must  take  his  aiders  and  comforters  with  him;  or  if  he  leaves  them 
behind,  where  he  has  no  court  to  enforce  his  decrees,  he  can  give  them 
no  security,  unless  it  be  by  the  stipulations  of  a  treaty.  In  a  civil  war 
it  is  altogether  different.  There,  when  rebellion  is  crushed,  the  old 
government  is  restored,  and  its  courts  resume  their  jurisdiction.  So 
it  is  with  us;  the  United  States  have  courts  of  their  own,  that  must 
punish  the  guilt  of  treason  and  vindicate  the  freedom  of  persons 
whom  the  fact  of  rebellion  has  set  free. 

Nor  may  it  be  said,  that  because  slavery  existed  in  most  of  the 
states  when  the  Union  was  formed,  it  cannot  rightfully  be  interfered 
with  now.  A  change  has  taken  place,  such  as  Madison  foresaw,  and 
for  which  he  pointed  out  the  remedy.  The  constitutions  of  states  had 
been  transformed  before  the  plotters  of  treason  carried  them  away 
into  rebellion.  When  the  Federal  Constitution  was  framed,  general 
emancipation  was  thought  to  be  near  ;  and  everywhere  the  respective 
legislatures  had  authority,  in  -the  exercise  of  their  ordinary  functions, 
to  do  away  with  slavery.  Since  that  time  the  attempt  has  been  made 
in  what  are  called  slave  states,  to  render  the  condition  of  slaverv  per 
petual;  and  events  have  proved,  with  the  clearness  of  demonstration, 
that  a  constitution  which  seeks  to  continue  a  caste  of  hereditary  bond 
men  through  endless  generations  is  inconsistent  with  the  existence  of 
republican  institutions. 

So,  then,  the  new  President  and  the  people  of  the  United  States 
must  insist  that  the  proclamation  of  freedom  shall  stand  as  a  reality. 
And,  moreover,  the  people  must  -never  cease  to  insist  that  the  Consti 
tution  shall  be  so  amended  as  utterly  to  prohibit  slavery  on  any  part 
of  our  soil  for  evermore. 

Alas!  that  a  state  in  our  vicinity  should  withhold  its  assent  to  this  last 
beneficent  measure  :  its  refusal  was  an  encouragement  to  our  ene 
mies  equal  to  the  gain  of  a  pitched  battlej  and  delays  the  only  hopeful 
method  of  pacification.  The  removal  of  the  cause  of  the  rebellion  is 
r  ,!  --ni-  fV-rti-intlcd  by  justice;  it  is  the  policy  of  mercy,  making  room 


GEORGE  BANCROFT.  651 

for  a  wider  clemency;  it  is  the  part  of  order  against  a  chaos  of  contro 
versy;  its  success  brings  with  it  true  reconcilement,  a  lasting  peace,  a 
continuous  growth  of  confidence  through  an  assimilation  of  the  social 
condition. 

Here  is  the  fitting  expression  of  the  mourning  of  to-day. 

And  let  no  lover  of  his  country  say  that  this  warning  is  uncalled  for. 
The  cry  is  delusive  that  slavery  is  dead.  Even  now  it  is  nerving  itself 
for  a  fresh  struggle  for  continuance.  The  last  winds  from  the  South 
waft  to  us  the  sad  intelligence  that  a  man  who  had  surrounded  him 
self  with  the  glory  of  the  most  brilliant  and  most  varied  achievements, 
who  but  a  week  ago  was  counted  with  affectionate  pride  among  the 
greatest  benefactors  of  his  country  and  the  ablest  generals  of  all  time, 
has  initiated  the  exercise  of  more  than  the  whole  power  of  the  Execu 
tive,  and  under  the  name  of  peace  has,  perhaps  unconsciously,  revived 
slavery,  and  given  the  hope  of  security  and  political  power  to  traitors, 
from  the  Chesapeake  to  the  Rio  Grande.  Why  could  he  not  remem 
ber  the  dying  advice  of  Washington,  never  to  draw  the  sword  but  for 
self-defence  or  the  rights  of  his  country,  and  when  drawn,  never  to 
sheath  it  till  its  work  should  be  accomplished  ?  And,  yet,  from  this 
ill-considered  act»  which  the  people  with  one  united  voice  condemn, 
no  great  evil  will  follow  save  the  shadow  on  his  own  fame,  and  that, 
also,  we  hope  will  pass  away.  The  individual,  even  in  the  greatness 
of  military  glory,  sinks  into  insignificance  before  the  resistless  move 
ments  of  ideas  in  the  history  of  man.  No  one  can  turn  back  or  stay 
the  march  of  Providence. 

No  sentiment  of  despair  may  mix  with  our  sorrow.  We  owe  it  to 
the  memory  of  the  dead,  we  owe  it  to  the  cause  of  popular  liberty 
throughout  the  world,  that  the  sudden  crime  which  has  taken  the  life 
of  the  President  of  the  United  States  shall  not  produce  the  least  im 
pediment  in  the  smooth  course  of  public  affairs.  This  great  city,  in 
the  midst  of  unexampled  emblems  of  deeply-seated  grief,  has  sus 
tained  itself  with  composure  and  magnanimity.  It  has  nobly  done  its 
part  in  guarding  against  the  derangement  of  business  or  the  slightest 
shock  to  public  credit.  The  enemies  of  the  republic  put  it  to  the  se 
verest  trial;  but  the  voice  of  faction  has  not  been  heard;  doubt  and 
despondency  have  been  unknown.  In  serene  majesty  the  counliy 
rises  in  the  beauty  and  strength  and  hope  of  youth,  and  proves  to  the 
world  the  quiet  energy  and  the  durability  of  institutions  growing  out 
of  the  reason  and  affections  of  the  people. 

Heaven  has  willed  it  that  the  United  States  shall  live.  The  nations 
of  the  earth  cannot  spare  them.  All  the  worn-out  aristocracies  of 
Europe  saw  in  the  spurious  feudalism  of  slaveholding,  their  strong 
est  outpost,  and  banded  themselves  together  with  the  deadly  enemies 
of  our  national  life.  If  the  Old  World  will  discuss  the  respective  ad 
vantages  of  oligarchy  or  equality;  of  the  union  of  church  and  state, 
or  i!:e  vi^htful  freedom  of  religion;  of  l:m  1  accessible  to  th"  manv,  or 


652  A  ME  RICA  N  PA  TRIO  TISM. 

of  land  monopolized  by  an  ever-decreasing  number  of  the  few,  the 
United  States  must  live  to  control  the  decision  by  their  quiet  and  un 
obtrusive  example.  It  has  often  and  truly  been  observed,  that  the 
trust  and  affection  of  the  masses  gather  naturally  round  an  individual; 
if  the  inquiry  is  made,  whether  the  man  so  trusted  and  beloved  shall 
elicit  from  the  reason  of  the  people,  enduring  institutions  of  their  own, 
or  shall  sequester  political  power  for  a  superintending  dynasty,  the 
United  States  must  live  to  solve  the  problem.  If  a  question  is  raised 
on  the  respective  merits  of  Timoleon  or  Julius  Caesar,  or  Washington 
or  Napoleon,  the  United  States  must  be  there  to  call  to  mind  that 
there  were  twelve  Cresars,  most  of  them  the  opprobrium  of  the 
human  race,  and  to  contrast  with  them  the  line  of  American  Presi 
dents. 

The  duty  of  the  hour  is  incomplete,  our  moi/irning  is  insincere,  if, 
while  we  express  unwavering  trust  in  the  great  principles  that  under 
lie  our  government,  we  do  not  also  give  our  support  to  the  man  to 
whom  the  people  have  entrusted  its  administration. 

Andrew  Johnson  is  now,  by  the  Constitution,  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  he  stands  before  the  world  as  the  most  conspicuous 
representative  of  the  industrial  classes.  Left  an  orphan  at  four  years 
old,  poverty  and  toil  were  his  steps  to  honor.  His  youth  was  not 
passed  in  the  halls  of  colleges;  nevertheless  he  has  received  a  thor 
ough  political  education  in  statesmanship;  in  the  school  of  the  people, 
and  by  long  experience  of  public  life.  A  village  functionary;  mem 
ber  successively  of  each  branch  of  the  Tennessee  Legislature,  hearing 
with  a  thrill  of  joy,  the  words,  "  the  Union,  it  must  be  preserved;" 
a  representative  in  Congress  for  successive  years;  Governor  of  the 
great  State  of  Tennessee,  approved  as  its  Governor  by  re-election;  he 
was  at  the  opening  of  the  rebellion  a  senator  from  that  state  in  Con 
gress.  Then  at  the  Capitol,  when  senators,  unrebuked  by  the  gov 
ernment,  sent  word  by  telegram  to  seize  forts  and  arsenals,  he  alone 
from  that  southern  region  told  them  what  the  government  did  not 
dare  to  tell  them,  that  they  were  traitors,  and  deserved  the  punish 
ment  of  treason.  Undismayed  by  a  perpetual  purpose  of  public  ene 
mies  to  take  his  life,  bearing  up  against  the  still  greater  trial  of  the 
persecution  of  his  wife  and  children,  in  due  time  he  went  back  to  his 
state,  determined  to  restore  it  to  the  Union,  or  die  with  the  American 
flag  for  his  winding  sheet.  And  now,  at  the  call  of  the  United  States, 
he  has  returned  to  Washington  as  a  conqueror,  with  Tennessee  as  a 
free  state  for  his  trophy.  It  remains  for  him  to  consummate  the  vin 
dication  of  the  LTnion. 

To  that  Union  Abraham  Lincoln  has  fallen  a  martyr.  His  death, 
which  was  meant  to  sever  it  beyond  repair,  binds  it  more  closely  and 
more  firmly  than  ever.  The  blow  aimed  at  him,  was  aimed  not  at  the 
native  of  Kentucky,  not  at  the  citizen  of  Illinois,  but  at  the  man,  who, 
as  President,  in  the  executive  branch  of  the  government,  stood  as  the 


MATTHEW  SIMPSON.  653 

representative  of  every  man  in  the  United  States.  The  object  of  the 
crime  was  the  life  of  the  whole  people;  and  it  wounds  the  affections 
of  the  whole  people.  From  Maine  to  the  southwest  boundary  of  the 
Pacific,  it  makes  us  one.  The  country  may  have  needed  an  imperish 
able  grief  to  touch  its  inmost  feeling.  The  grave  that  receives  the 
remains  of  Lincoln,  receives  the  costly  sacrifice  to  the  Union;  the 
monument  which  will  rise  over  his  body  will  bear  witness  to  the  Union ; 
his  enduring  memory  will  assist  during  countless  ages  to  bind  the 
states  together,  and  to  incite  to  the  love  of  our  one  undivided,  indi 
visible  country.  Peace  to  the  ashes  of  our  departed  friend,  the  friend 
of  his  country  and  of  his  race.  He  was  happy  in  his  life,  for  he  was 
the  restorer  of  the  republic;  he  was  happy  in  his  death,  for  his  mar 
tyrdom  will  plead  forever  for  the  Union  of  the  states  and  the  freedom 
of  man. 


THE  BURIAL  OF  LINCOLN. 

MATTHEW  SIMPSON. 

Springfield,  III.,    May  4,   1865. 

Near  the  capital  of  this  large  and  growing  state  of  Illinois,  in  the 
midst  of  this  beautiful  grove,  and  at  the  open  mouth  of  the  vault  which 
has  just  received  the  remains  of  our  fallen  chieftain,  we  gather  to  pay 
a  tribute  of  respect  and  to  drop  the  tears  of  sorrow  around  the  ashes 
of  the  mighty  dead.  A  little  more  than  four  years  ago  he  left  his  plain 
and  quiet  home  in  yonder  city,  receiving  the  parting  words  of  the  con 
course  of  friends  who,  in  the  midst  of  the  dropping  of  the  gentle 
shower,  gathered  around  him.  He  spoke  of  the  pain  of  parting  from 
the  place  where  he  had  lived  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  where  his 
children  had  been  born,  and  his  home  had  been  rendered  pleasant  by 
friendly  associations,  and,  as  he  left,  he  made  an  earnest  request,  in 
the  hearing  of  some  who  are  present  at  this  hour,  that,  as  he  was 
about  to  enter  upon  responsibilities  which  he  believed  to  be  greater 
than  any  which  had  fallen  upon  any  man  since  the  days  of  Washing 
ton,  the  people  would  offer  up  prayers  that  God  would  aid  and  sustain 
him  in  the  work  which  they  had  given  him  to  do.  His  company  left 
your  quiet  city,  but,  as  it  went,  snares  were  in  waiting  for  the  chief 
magistrate.  Scarcely  did  he  escape  the  dangers  of  the  way  or  the 
hands  of  the  assassin,  as  he  neared  Washington;  and  I  believe  he  es 
caped  only  through  the  vigilance  of  officers  and  the  prayers  of  his  peo 
ple,  so  that  the  blow  was  suspended  for  more  than  four  years,  which 
was  at  last  permitted,  through  the  providence  of  God,  to  fall. 

How  different  the  occasion  which  witnessed  his  departure  from  that 
which  witnessed  his  return.  Doubtless  you  expected  to  take  him  by  the 


654  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

hand,  and  to  feel  the  warm  grasp  which  you  had  felt  in  other  days,  and 
to  see  the  tall  form  walking  among  you  which  you  had  delighted  to  honor 
in  years  past.  But  he  was  never  permitted  to  come  until  he  came  with 
lips  mute  and  silent,  the  frame  encoffined,  and  a  weeping  nation  fol 
lowing  as  his  mourners.  Such  a  scene  as  his  return  to  you  was  never 
witnessed.  Among  the  events  of  history  there  have  been  great  pro 
cessions  of  mourners.  There  was  one  for  the  patriarch  Jacob,  which 
went  up  from  Egypt,  and  the  Egyptians  wondered  at  the  evidences  of 
reverence  and  filial  affection  which  came  from  the  hearts  of  the  Israel 
ites.  There  was  mourning  when  Moses  fell  upon  the  heights  of  Pis- 
gah  and  was  hid  from  human  view.  There  have  been  mournings  in 
the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  when  kings  and  princes  have  fallen,  but 
never  was  there,  iu  the  history  of  man,  such  mourning  as  that  which 
has  accompanied  this  funeral  procession,  and  has  gathered  around  the 
mortal  remains  of  him  who  was  our  loved  one,  and  who  now  sleeps 
among  us.  If  we  glance  at  the  procession  which  followed  him,  we  see 
how  the  nation  stood  aghast.  Tears  filled  the  eyes  of  manly,  sun, 
burnt  faces.  Strong  men,  as  they  clasped  the  hands  of  their  friends, 
were  unable  to  find  vent  for  their  grief  in  words.  Women  and  little 
children  caught  up  the  tidings  as  they  ran  through  the  land,  and  were 
melted  into  tears.  The  nation  stood  still.  Men  left  their  ploughs  in 
the  field  and  asked  what  the  end  should  be.  The  hum  of  manufacto 
ries  ceased,  and  the  sound  of  the  hammer  was  not  heard.  Busy  mer 
chants  closed  their  doors,  and  in  the  exchange  gold  passed  no  more 
from  hand  to  hand.  Though  three  weeks  have  elapsed,  the  nation 
has  scarcely  breathed  easily  yet.  A  mournful  silence  is  abroad  upon 
the  land;  nor  is  this  mourning  confined  to  any  class  or  to  any  district 
of  country.  Men  of  all  political  parties,  and  of  all  religious  creeds, 
have  united  in  paying  this  mournful  tribute.  The  archbishop  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  in  New  York  and  a  Protestant  minister  walked 
side  by  side  in  the  sad  procession,  and  a  Jewish  Rabbi  performed  a 
part  of  the  solemn  services. 

Here  are  gathered  around  his  tomb  the  representatives  of  the  army 
and  navy,  senators,  judges,  governors,  and  officers  of  all  the  branches 
of  the  government.  Here,  too,  are  members  of  civic  processions,  with 
men  and  women  from  the  humblest  as  well  as  the  highest  occupations. 
Here  and  there,  too,  are  tears,  as  sincere  and  warm  as  any  that  drop, 
which  come  from  the  eyes  of  those  whose  kindred  and  whose  race 
have  been  freed  from  their  chains  by  him  whom  they  mourn  as  their 
deliverer.  More  persons  have  gazed  on  the  face  of  the  departed  than 
ever  looked  upon  the  face  of  any  other  departed  man.  More  races 
have  looked  on  the  procession  for  1600  miles  or  more — by  night  and 
by  day — by  sunlight,  dawn,  twilight,  and  by  torchlight,  than  ever  be 
fore  watched  the  progress  of  a  procession. 

We  ask  why  this  wonderful  mourning — this  great  procession  ?  I 
answer,  first,  a  part  of  the  interest  has  arisen  from  the  times  in  which 


MATTHEW  SIMPSON.  655 

we  live,  and  in  which  he  that  had  fallen  was  a  principal  actor.  It  is  a 
principle  of  our  nature  that  feelings,  once  excited,  turn  readily  from 
the  object  by  which  they  are  excited,  to  some  other  object  which  may 
for  the  time  being  take  possession  of  the  mind.  Another  principle  is, 
the  deepest  affections  of  our  hearts  gather  around  some  human  form 
in  which  are  incarnated  the  living  thoughts  and  ideas  of  the  passing 
age.  If  we  look  then  at  the  times,  we  see  an  age  of  excitement.  For 
four  years  the  popular  heart  has  been  stirred  to  its  inmost  cle;  til.  \Y,-ir 
had  come  upon  us,  dividing  families,  separating  nearest  and  dearest 
friends — a  war,  the  extent  and  magnitude  of  which  no  one  could  esti 
mate — a  war  in  which  the  blood  of  brethren  was  shed  by  a  brother's 
hand.  A  call  for  soldiers  was  made  by  this  voice  now  hushed,  and  all 
over  the  land,  from  hill  and  mountain,  from  plain  to  valley,  there 
sprang  up  thousands  of  bold  hearts,  ready  to  go  forth  and  save  our 
national  Union.  This  feeling  of  excitement  was  transferred  next  into 
a  feeling  of  deep  grief  because  of  the  dangers  in  which  our  country 
was  placed.  Many  said,  "Is  it  possible  to  save  our  nation?"  Some  in 
our  country,  and  nearly  all  the  leading  men  in  other  countries,  de 
clared  it  to  be  impossible  to  maintain  the  Union;  and  many  an  honest 
and  patriotic  heart  was  deeply  pained  with  apprehensions  of  common 
ruin;  and  many,  in  grief  and  almost  in  despair,  anxiously  inquired, 
What  shall  the  end  of  these  things  be  ?  In  addition  to  this  wives  had 
given  their  husbands,  mothers  their  sons,  the  pride  and  joy  of  their 
hearts.  They  saw  them  put  on  the  uniform,  they  saw  them  take  the 
martial  step,  and  they  tried  to  hide  their  deep  feeling  of  sadness. 
Many  dear' ones  slept  upon  the  battle-field  never  to  return  again,  and 
there  was  mourning  in  every  mansion  and  in  every  cabin  in  our  broad 
land.  Then  came  a  feeling  of  deeper  sadness  as  the  story  came  of 
prisoners  tortured  to  death  or  starved  through  the  mandates  of  those 
who  are  called  the  representatives  of  the  chivalry,  and  who  claimed  t-) 
be  the  honorable  ones  of  the  earth;  and  as  we  read  the  stories  of  frames 
attenuated  and  reduced  to  mere  skeletons,  our  grief  turned  partly  into 
horror  and  partly  into  aery  for  vengeance. 

Then  this  feeling  was  changed  to  one  cf  joy.  There  came  signs  of 
the  end  of  this  rebellion.  We  followed  the  career  of  our  glorious  gen 
erals.  We  saw  our  army,  under  the  command  of  the  brave  ofiicer 
who  is  guiding  this  procession,  climb  up  the  heights  of  Lookout  Moun 
tain  and  drive  the  rebels  from  their  strongholds.  Another  brave  gen 
eral  swept  through  Georgia,  South  and  North  Carolina,  and  drove  the 
combined  armies  of  the  rebels  before  him,  while  the  honored  Lieuten 
ant-General  held  Lee  and  his  hosts  in  a  death-grasp. 

Then  the  tidings  came  that  Richmond  was  evacuated,  and  that  Lee 
had  surrendered.  The  bells  rang  merrily  all  over  the  land.  The 
booming  of  cannon  was  heard;  illuminations  and  torchlight  proces 
sions  manifested  the  general  joy,  and  families  were  looking  for  the 
speedy  return  of  their  loved  ones  from  the  field  of  battle.  Just  in  the 


656  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

midst  of  this  wildest  joy,  in  one  hour — nay,  in  one  moment — the 
tidings  thrilled  throughout  the  land  that  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  best  of 
Presidents,  had  perished  by  the  hands  of  an  assassin;  and  then  all  the 
feelings  which  had  been  gathering  for  four  years,  in  forms  of  excite 
ment,  grief,  horror,  and  joy,  turned  into  one  wail  of  woe — a  sadness 
inexpressible — an  anguish  unutterable.  But  it  is  not  the  times  merely 
which  caused  this  mourning..  The  mode  of  his  death  must  be  taken 
into  the  account.  Had  he  died  on  a  bed  of  illness,  with  kind  friends 
around  him;  had  the  sweat  of  death  been  wiped  from  his  brow  by  gen 
tle  hands,  while  he  was  yet  conscious;  could  he  have  had  power  to 
speak  words  of  affection  to  his  stricken  widow,  or  words  of  counsel  to 
us  like  those  which  we  heard  in  his  parting  inaugural  at  Washington, 
which  shall  now  be  immortal — how  it  would  have  softened  or  assuaged 
something  of  the  grief.  There  might,  at  least,  have  been  preparation 
for  the  event.  But  no  moment  of  warning  was  given  to  him  or  to  us. 
He  was  stricken  down,  too,  when  his  hopes  for  the  end  of  the  rebel 
lion  were  bright,  and  prospects  of  a  joyous  life  were  before  him. 
There  was  a  cabinet  meeting  that  day,  said  to  have  been  the  most 
cheerful  and  happy  of  any  held  since  the  beginning  of  the  rebellion. 
After  this  meeting  he  talked  with  his  friends,  and  spoke  of  the  four 
years  of  tempest,  of  the  storm  being  over,  and  of  the  four  years  of 
pleasure  and  joy  now  awaiting  him,  as  the  weight  of  care  and  anxiety 
would  be  taken  from  his  mind,  and  he  could  have  happy  days  with  his 
family  again.  In  the  midst  of  these  anticipations  he  left  his  house 
never  to  return  alive.  The  evening  was  Good  Friday,  the  saddest  day 
in  the  whole  calendar  for  the  Christian  Church — henceforth  in  this 
country  to  be  made  sadder,  if  possible,  by  the  memory  of  our  nation's 
loss;  and  so  filled  with  grief  was  every  Christian  heart  that  even  all 
the  joyous  thoughts  of  Easter  Sunday  failed  to  remove  the  crushing 
sorrow  under  which  the  true  worshipper  bowed  in  the  house  of  God. 

But  the  great  cause  of  this  mourning  is  to  be  found  in  the  man  him 
self.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  no  ordinary  man.  I  believe  the  conviction  has 
been  growing  on  the  nation's  mind,  as  it  certainly  has  been  on  my 
own,  especially  in  the  last  year  of  his  administration,  that,  by  the 
hand  of  God,  he  was  especially  singled  out  to  guide  our  Government 
in  these  troublesome  times,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  the  hand  of  God 
may  be  traced  in  ma'ny  of  the  events  connected  with  his  history. 
First,  then,  I  recognize  this  in  the  physical  education  which  he  re 
ceived,  and  which  prepared  him  for  enduring  herculean  labors.  In 
the  toils  of  his  boyhood  and  the  labors  of  his  manhood,  God  was  giv 
ing  him  an  iron  frame.  Next  to  this  was  his  identification  with  the 
heart  of  the  great  people,  understanding  their  feelings  because  he  was 
one  of  them,  and  connected  with  them  in  their  movements  and  life. 
1 1  is  education  was  simple.  A  few  months  spent  in  the  schoolhouse 
gave  him  the  elements  of  education.  He  read  few  books,  but  mas 
tered  all  he  read,  Bunyan's  Progress,  CEsop's  Fables,  and  the  Life  of 


MATTHEW  SIMP  SOX.  657 

Washington  were  his  favorites.  In  these  we  recognize  the  works 
which  gave  bias  to  his  character,  and  which  partly  moulded  his  style. 
His  early  life,  with  its  varied  struggles,  joined  him  indissolubly  to  the 
working  m asses,  and  no  elevation  in  society  diminished  his  respect  for 
the  sons  of  toil.  He  knew  what  it  was  to  fell  the  tall  trees  of  the  for 
est  and  to  stem  the  current  of  the  broad  Mississippi.  His  home  was 
in  the  growing  West,  the  heart  of  the  Republic,  and,  invigorated  by 
the  wind  which  swept  over  its  prairies,  he  learned  lessons  of  self-re 
liance  which  sustained  him  in  seasons  of  adversity. 

His  genius  was  soon  recognized,  as  true  genius  always  will  be,  and 
he  was  placed  in  the  Legislature  of  his  state.  Already  acquainted  with 
the  principles  of  law,  he  devoted  his  thoughts  to  matters  of  public  in 
terest,  and  began  to  be  looked  on  as  the  coming  statesman.  As  early 
as  1839  he  presented  resolutions  in  the  Legislature,  asking  for  eman 
cipation  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  when,  with  but  rare  exceptions, 
the  whole  popular  mind  of  his  state  was  opposed  to  the  measure. 
From  that  hour  he  was  a  steady  and  uniform  friend  of  humanity,  and 
was  preparing  for  the  conflict  of  latter  years. 

If  you  ask  me  on  what  mental  characteristic  his  greatness  rested,  I 
answer,  on  a  quick  and  ready  perception  of  facts;  on  a  memory  un 
usually  tenacious  and  retentive;  and  on  a  logical  turn  of  mind,  which 
followed  sternly  and  unwaveringly  every  link  in  the  chain  of  thought 
on  every  subject  which  he  was  called  to  investigate.  I  think  there 
have  been  minds  more  broad  in  their  character,  more  comprehensive 
in  their  scope,  but  I  doubt  if  ever  there  has  been  a  man  who  could 
follow  step  by  step,  with  more  logical  power,  the  points  which  he  de 
sired  to  illustrate.  He  gained  this  power  by  the  close  study  of  geome 
try,  and  by  a  determination  to  perceive  the  truth  in  all  its  relations 
and  simplicity,  and,  when  found,  to  utter  it. 

It  is  said  of  him  that  in  childhood,  when  he  had  any  difficulty  in 
listening  to  a  conversation  to  ascertain  what  people  meant,  if  he  re 
tired  to  rest  he  could  not  sleep  till  he  tried  to  understand  the  precise 
points  intended,  and,  when  understood,  to  frame  language  to  convey 
it  in  a  clearer  manner  to  others.  Who  that  has  read  his  messages  fails 
to  perceive  the  directness  and  the  simplicity  of  his  style?  And  this 
very  trait,  which  was  scoffed  at  and  decried  by  opponents,  is  now 
recognized  as  one  of  the  strong  points  of  that  mighty  mind  which 
has  so  powerfully  influenced  the  destiny  of  this  nation,  and  which 
shall,  for  ages  to  come,  influence  the  destiny  of  humanity. 

It  was  not,  however,  chiefly  by  his  mental  faculties  that  he  gained 
such  control  over  mankind.  His  moral  power  gave  him  pre-eminence. 
The  convictions  of  men  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  an  honest  man  led 
them  to  yield  to  his  guidance.  As  has  been  said  of  Cobden,  whom 
he  greatly  resembled,  he  made  all  men  feel  a  sense  of  himself — a 
recognition  of  individuality — a  self-relying  power.  They  saw  in  him 
a  man  whom  they  believed  would  do  what  is  right,  regardless  of  all 


658  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

consequences.  It  was  this  moral  feeling  which  gave  him  the  greatest 
hold  on  the  people,  and  made  his  utterances  almost  oracular.  When 
the  nation  was  angered  by  the  perfidy  of  foreign  nations  in  allowing 
privateers  to  be  fitted  out,  he  uttered  the  significant  expression, 
"  One  war  at  a  time,"  and  it  stilled  the  national  heart.  When  his  own 
friends  were  divided  as  to  what  steps  should  be  taken  as  to  slavery, 
that  simple  utterance,  "  I  will  save  the  Union,  if  I  can,  with  slavery; 
if  not,  slavery  must  perish,  for  the  Union  must  be  preserved,"  became 
the  rallying  word.  Men  felt  the  struggle  was  for  the  Union,  and  all 
other  questions  must  he  subsidiary. 

But,  after  all,  by  the  acts  of  a  man  shall  his  fame  be  perpetuated. 
What  are  his  acts  ?  Much  praise  is  due  to  the  men  who  aided  him. 
He  called  able  counselors  around  him — some  of  whom  have  displayed 
the  highest  order  of  talent,  united  with  the  purest  and  most  devoted 
patriotism.  He  summoned  able  generals  into  the  field — men  who 
have  borne  the  sword  as  bravely  as  ever  any  human  arm  has  borne  it. 
He  had  the  aid  of  prayerful  and  thoughtful  men  everywhere.  But, 
under  his  own  guiding  hands,  wise  counsels  were  combined  and  great 
movements  conducted. 

Turn  towards  the  different  departments.  We  had.  an  unorgani/ed 
militia,  a  mere  skeleton  army,  yet,  under  his  care,  that  army  has  been 
enlarged  into  a  force  which,  for  skill,  intelligence,  efficif  ncy,  and 
bravery,  surpasses  any  which  the  world  had  ever  seen.  Before  its 
veterans  the  fame  of  even  the  renowned  veterans  of  Napoleon, 
shall  pale,  and  the  mothers  and  sisters  on  these  hill  sides,  and 
all  over  the  land,  shall  take  to  their  arms  again  braver  sons  and 
brothers  than  ever  fought  in  European  wars.  The  reason  is  obvious. 
Money,  or  a  desire  for  fame,  collected  those  armies,  or  they  were 
rallied  to  sustain  favorite  thrones  or  dynasties;  but  the  armies  he  called 
into  being  fought  for  liberty,  for  the  Union,  and  for  the  right  of  self- 
government;  and  many  of  them  felt  that  the  battles  they  won  were 
for  humanity  everywhere  and  for  all  time;  for  I  believe  that  God  has 
not  suffered  this  terrible  rebellion  to  come  upon  our  land  merely  for 
a  chastisement  to  us,  or  as  a  lesson  to  our  age.  There  are  moments 
which  involve  in  themselves  eternities.  There  are  instants  which 
seem  to  contain  germs  which  shall  develop  and  bloom  forever.  Such 
a  moment  came  in  the  tide  of  time  to  our  land,  when  a  question  must 
be  settled  which  affected  all  the  earth.  The  contest  was  for  human 
freedom,  not  for  this  Republic  merely,  not  for  the  Union  simply,  but 
to  decide  whether  the  people,  as  a  people,  in  their  entire  majesty, 
were  destined  to  be  the  government,  or  whether  they  were  to  be  sub 
ject  to  tyrants  or  aristocrats,  or  to  class-rule  of  any  kind.  This  is  the 
great  question  for  which  we  have  been  fighting,  and  its  decision  is  at 
hand,  and  the  result  of  the  contest  will  affect  the  ages  to  come.  If 
successful,  republics  will  spread  in  spite  of  monarch,  all  over  this 
earth. 


MATTHEW  SIMPSON.  '    659 

I  turn  from  the  arrrfy  to  the  navy.  What  was  it  when  the  war  com 
menced?  Now  we  have  our  ships-of-war  at  home  and  abroad,  to 
guard  privateers  in  foreign  sympathizing  ports,  as  well  as  to  care  for 
every  part  of  our  own  coast.  They  have  taken  forts  that  military  men 
said  could  not  be  taken,  and  a  brave  admiral,  for  the  first  time  in  the 
world's  history,  lashed  himself  to  the  mast,  there  to  remain  as  long  as 
he  had  a  particle  of  skill  or  strength  to  watch  over  his  ship,  while  it 
engaged  in  the  perilous  contest  of  taking  the  strong  forts  of  the  rebels. 

Then,  again,  I  turn  to  the  treasury  department.  Where  should  the 
money  come  from  ?  Wise  men  predicted  ruin,  but  our  national  credit 
has  been  maintained,  and  our  currency  is  safer  to-day  than  it  ever  was 
before.  Not  only  so,  but  through  our  national  bonds,  if  properly  used, 
we  shall  have  a  permanent  basis  for  our  currency,  and  an  investment 
so  desirable  for  capitalists  of  other  nations  that,  under  the  laws  of 
trade,  I  believe  the  centre  of  exchange  will  speedily  be  transferred 
from  England  to  the  United  States. 

But  the  great  act  of  the  mighty  rhieftain,  on  which  his  fame  shall 
rest  long  after  his  frame  shall  molder  away,  is  that  of  giving  freedom 
to  a  race.  We  have  all  been  taught  to  revere  the  sacred  characters. 
Among  them  Moses  stands  pre-eminently  high.  He  received  the  law 
from  God,  and  his  name  is  honored  among  the  hosts  of  heaven.  Was 
not  his  greatest  act  the  delivering  of  three  millions  of  his  kindred  out 
of  bondage  ?  Yet  we  may  assert  that  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  his  proc 
lamation,1  liberated  more  enslaved  people  than  ever  Moses  set  free, 
and  those  not  of  his  kindred  or  his  race.  Such  a  power,  or  such  an 
opportunity,  God  has  seldom  given  to  man.  When  other  events  shall 
have  been  forgotten;  when  this  world  shall  have  become  a  network  of 
republics;  when  every  throne  shall  be  swept  from  the  face  of  the 
earth;  when  literature  shall  enlighten  all  minds;  when  the  claims  of 
humanity  shall  be  recognized  everywhere,  this  act  shall  still  be  con 
spicuous  on  the  pages  of  history.  .We  are  thankful  that  God  gave  to 
Abraham  Lincoln  the  decision  and  wisdom  and  grace  to  issue  that 
proclamation,  which  stands  hi-h  above  all  other  papers  which  have 
:  been  penned  by  uninspired  men. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  good  man.     He  was  known  as  an  honest, 


My  acquaintance  with  him  did  not  give  me  the  opportunity  to  hear 
him  speak  on  those  topics.  This  I  know,  however,  he  read  the  Bible 
frequently;  loved  it  for  its  great  truths  and  its  profound  teachings;  and 
he  tried  to  be  guided  by  its  precepts.  He  believed  in  Christ  the 
Saviour  of  sinners,  and  I  think  he  was  sincere  in  trying  to  bring  his 
life  into  harmony  with  the  principles  of  revealed  religion.  Certainly 
if  there  ever  was  a  man  who  illustrated  some  of  the  principles  of  pure 
religion,  that  man  was  our  departed  President.  Look  over  all  his 


660.  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

speeches,  listen  to  his  utterances.  He  never  ,spoke  unkindly  of  any 
man.  Even  the  rebels  received  no  word  of  anger  from  him,  and  his 
last  day  illustrated  in  a  remarkable  manner  his  forgiving  disposition. 
A  dispatch  was  received  that  afternoon  that  Thompson  and  Tucker 
were  trying  to  make  their  escape  through  Maine,  and  it  was  proposed 
to  arrest  them.  Mr.  Lincoln,  however,  preferred  rather  to  let  them 
quietly  escape.  He  was  seeking  to  save  the  very  men  who  had  been 
plotting  his  destruction.  This  morning  we  read  a  proclamation  offer 
ing  $25,000  for  the  arrest  of  these  men  as  aiders  and  abbetors  of  his 
assassination;  so  that,  in  his  expiring  acts,  he  was  saying,  "  Father, 
forgive  them,  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

As  a  ruler,  I  doubt  if  any  President  has  ever  shown  such  trust  in  God, 
or  in  public  documents  so  frequently  referred  to  Divine  aid.  Often  did 
he  remark  to  friends  and  to  delegations  that  his  hope  for  our  success 
rested  in  his  conviction  that  God  would  bless  our  efforts,  because  we 
were  trying  to  do  right.  To  the  address  of  a  large  religious  body  he 
replied,  "  Thanks  be  unto  God,  who,  in  our  national  trials,  giveth  us  the 
churches."  To  a  minister  who  said  he  hoped  the  Lord  was  on  our  side, 
lie  replied  that  it  gave  him  no  concern  whether  the  Lord  was  on  our  side 
or  not,  for,  he  added,  "  I  know  the  Lord  is  always  on  the  side  of  right," 
and  with  deep  feeling  added,  "  But  God  is  my  witness  that  it  is  my  con 
stant  anxiety  and  prayer  that  both  myself  and  this  nation  should  be  on 
the  Lord's  side.1' 

In  his  domestic  life  he  was  exceedingly  kind  and  affectionate.  He 
was  a  devoted  husband  and  father.  During  his  presidential  term  he  lost 
his  second  son,  Willie.  To  an  officer  of  the  army  he  said,  not  long 
since,  "  Do  you  ever  find  yourself  talking  with  the  dead  ?"  and  added, 
"  Since  Willie's  death  I  catch  myself  every  day  involuntarily  talking 
with  him,  as  if  he  were  with  me."  On  his  widow,  who  is  unable  to  be 
here,  I  need  only  invoke  the  blessing  of  Almighty  God  that  she  may  be 
comforted  and  sustained.  For  his  son,  who  has  witnessed  the  exercises 
of  this  hour,  all  that  I  can  desire  is  that  the  mantle  of  his  father  may 
fall  upon  him. 

Let  us  pause  a  moment  in  the  lesson  of  the  hour  before  we  part. 
This  man,  though  he  iell  by  an  assassin,  still  fell  under  the  permissive 
hand  of  God.  He  had  some  wise  purpose  in  allowing  him  so  to  fall. 
What  more  could  he  have  desired  of  life  for  himself?  Were  not  his 
honors  full?  There  was  no  office  to  which  he  could  not  aspire.  The 
popular  heart  clung  around  him  as  around  no  other  man.  The  nations 
of  the  world  had  learned  to  honor  our  chief  magistrate.  If  rumors  of  a 
desired  alliance  with  England  be  true,  Napoleon  trembled  when  he 
heard  of  the  fall  of  Richmond,  and  asked  what  nation  would  join  him 
to  protect  him  against  our  government  under  the  guidance  of  such  a  man. 
His  fame  was  full,  his  work  was  done,  and  he  sealed  his  glory  by  be 
coming  the  nation's  great  martyr  for  liberty. 

lie  appears  to  have  had  a  strange  presentiment,  early  in  political  life, 


MATTHEW  SIMPSON.  66 1 

that  some  day  he  would  be  President.  You  see  it  indicated  in  1839. 
Of  the  slave  power  he  said,  "  Broken  by  it  I  too  may  be  ;  bow  to  it  I 
never  will.  The  probability  that  we  may  fail  in  the  struggle  ought  not 
to  dster  us  from  the  support  of  a  cause  which  we  deem  to  be  just.  It 
shall  not  deter  me.  If  ever  I  feel  the  soul  within  me  elevate  and  ex 
pand  to  those  dimensions  not  wholly  unworthy  of  its  Almighty  architect, 
it  is  when  I  contemplate  the  cause  of  my  country,  deserted  by  all  thj 
world  besides,  and  I  standing  up  boldly  and  alone  and  hurling  defiance 
at  her  victorious  oppressors.  Here  without  contemplating  consequences, 
before  high  Heaven  and  in  the  face  of  the  world,  I  swear  eternal  fidelity, 
to  the  just  cause,  as  I  deem  it,  of  the  land  of  my  life,  my  liberty,  and 
my  love."  And  yet,  secretly,  he  said  to  more  than  one,  "  I  never  shall 
live  out  the  four  years  of  my  term.  When  the  rebellion  is  crushed  my 
work  is  done."  So  it  was.  He  lived  to  see  the  last  battle  fought,  and 
dictate  a  despatch  from  the  home  of  Jefferson  Davis  ;  lived  till  the 
power  of  the  rebellion  was  broken  ;  and  then,  having  done  the  work 
for  which  God  had  sent  him,  angels,  I  trust,  were  sent  to  shield  him 
from  one  moment  of  pain  or  suffering,  and  to  bear  him  from  this 
world  to  the  high  and  glorious  realm  where  the  patriot  and  the  good 
shall  live  forever. 

His  career  teaches  young  men  that  every  position  of  eminence  is  open 
before  the  diligent  and  the  worthy.  To  the  active  men  of  the  country, 
his  example  is  an  incentive  to  trust  in  God  and  do  right. 

Standing,  as  we  do  to-day,  by  his  coffin  and  his  sepulchre,  let  us  re 
solve  to  carry  forward  the  policy  which  he  so  nobly  began.  Let  us  do 
right  to  all  men.  To  the  ambitious  there  is  this  fearful  lesson  :  Of  the 
four  candidates  for  presidential  honors  in  1860,  two  of  them — Douglas 
and  Lincoln — once  competitors,  but  now  sleeping  patriots,  rest  from 
their  labors  ;  Bell  perished  in  poverty  and  misery,  as  a  traitor  might 
perish  ;  and  Breckinridge  is  a  frightened  fugitive,  with  the  brand  of 
traitor  on  his  brow.  Let  us  vow,  in  the  sight  of  Heaven,  to  eradicate 
every  vestige  of  human  slavery  ;  to  give  every  human  being  his  tme 
position  before  God  and  man  ;  to  crush  every  form  of  rebellion,  and  to 
stand  by  the  flag  which  God  has  given  us.  How  joyful  that  it  floated 
over  parts  of  every  State  before  Mr.  Lincoln's  career  was  ended.  How 
singular  that,  to  the  fact  of  the  assassin's  heels  being  caught  in  the 
folds  of  the  flag,  we  are  probably  indebted  for  his  capture.  The  flag 
and  the  traitor  must  ever  be  enemies. 

Traitors  will  probably  suffer  by  the  change  of  rulers,  for  one  of 
sterner  mould,  and  who  himself  has  deeply  suffered  from  the  rebellion, 
now  wields  the  sword  of  justice.  Our  country,  too,  is  stronger  for  the 
trial.  A  republic  was  declared  by  monarchists  too  weak  to  endure  a 
civil  war  ;  yet  we  have  crushed  the  most  gigantic  rebellion  in  history, 
and  have  grown  in  strength  and  population  every  year  of  the  struggle. 
We  have  passed  through  the  ordeal  of  a  popular  election  while  swords 
and  bayonets  were  in  the  field,  and  have  come  out  unharmed.  And 


662  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

now,  in  an  hour  of  excitement,  with  a  large  majority  having  preferred 
another  man  for  president,  when  the  bullet  of  the  assassin  has  laid  our 
president  prostrate,  has  there  been  a  mutiny  ?  Has  any  rival  proffered 
his  claims?  Out  of  an  army  of  near  a  million,  no  officer  or  soldier  ut 
tered  one  note  of  dissent,  and,  in  an  hour  or  two  after  Mr.  Lincoln's 
death,  another  leader  under  constitutional  forms,  occupied  his  chair,  and 
the  government  moved  forward  without  one  single  jar.  The  world  will 
learn  that  republics  are  the  strongest  governments  on  earth. 

And  now,  my  friends,  in  the  words  of  the  departed,  "with  malice 
towards  none,"  free  from  all  feelings  of  personal  vengeance,  yet  be 
lieving  that  the  sword  must  not  be  borne  in  vain,  let  us  go  forward 
even  in  painful  duty.  Let  every  man  who  was  a  Senator  or  Repre 
sentative  in  Congress,  and  who  aided  in  beginning  this  rebellion,  and 
thus  led  to  the  slaughter  of  our  sons  and  daughters,  be  brought  to 
speedy  and  to  certain  punishment.  Let  every  officer  educated  at  the 
public  expense,  and  who,  having  been  advanced  to  position,  perjured 
himself  and  turned  his  sword  against  the  vitals  of  his  country,  be 
doomed  to  a  traitor's  death.  This,  I  believe,  is  the  will  of  the 
American  people.  Men  may  attempt  to  compromise,  and  to  re 
store  these  traitors  and  murderers  to  society  again.  Vainly  may  they 
talk  of  the  fancied  honor  or  chivalry  of  these  murderers  of  our  sons — 
these  starvers  of  our  prisoners — these  officers  who  mined  their 
prison  and  placed  kegs  of  powder  to  destroy  our  captive  officers. 
But  the  American  people  will  rise  in  their  majesty  and  sweep  all  such 
compromises  and  compromisers  away,  and  will  declare  that  there  shall 
be  no  safety  for  rebel  leaders.  But  to  the  deluded  masses  we  will  ex 
tend  the  arms  of  forgiveness.  We  will  take  them  to  our  hearts,  and 
walk  with  them  side  by  side:  as  we  go  forward  to  work  out  a  glorious 
destiny. 

,       The  time  will  come  when,  in  the  beautiful  words  of  him  whose  lips 
;    are  now  forever  sealed,  "the  mystic  chords  of  memory  which  stretch 
from  every  battle-field,   and  from  every  patriot's  grave,  shall  yield  a 
sweeter  music  when  touched  by  the  angels  of  our  better  nature." 

Chieftain !  farewell !  The  nation  mourns  thee.  Mothers  shall 
teach  thy  name  to  their  lisping  children.  The  youth  of  our  land 
shall  emulate  thy  virtues.  Statesmen  shall  study  thy  record  and 
learn  lessons  of  wisdom.  Mute  though  thy  lips  be,  yet  they  stiii 
speak.  Hushed  is  thy  voice,  but  its  echoes  of  liberty  are  ringing 
through  the  world,  and  the  sons  of  bondage  listen  with  joy.  Prisoned 
thou  art  in  death,  and  yet  thou  art  marching  abroad,  and  chains 
and  manacles  are  bursting  at  thy  touch.  Thou  didst  fall  not 
for  thyself.  The  assassin  had  no  hate  for  thee.  Our  hearts  were 
•.aimed  at,  our  national  life  was  sought.  We  crown  thee  as  our 
martyr — and  humanity  enthrones  thee  as  her  triumphant  son.  Hero. 
Martyr,  Friend,  FAREWELL  ! 


CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS,  JR.  663 


THE  DOUBLE  ANNIVERSARY;  '76  AND  '63. 
CHARLES   FRANCIS  ADAMS,  JR. 

Qtiincy,  Massachwetes,  July  4,  1869. 

Six  years  ago  on  this  anniversary  we — and  not  only  we  who  stood  i 
upon  the  scared  and  furrowed  field  of  battle,  but  you  and  our  whole  *. 
country  were  drawing  breath  after  the  struggle  of  Gettysburg.  For 
three  long  days  we  had  stood  the  strain  of  conflict,  and  now,  at  last, 
when  the  nation's  birthday  dawned,  the  shattered  rebel  columns  had 
sullenly  withdrawn  from  our  front,  and  we  drew  that  long  breath  of 
deep  relief  which  none  have  ever  drawn  who  have  not  passed  in  safety 
through  the  shock  of  doubtful  battle.  Nor  was  our  country  gladdened 
then  by  news  from  Gettysburg  alone.  The  army  that  day  twined 
noble  laurel  garlands  round  the  proud  brow  of  the  mother  land, 
Vicksburg  was,  thereafter,  to  be  forever  associated  with  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  and  the  glad  anniversary  rejoicings  as  they  rose 
from  every  town  and  village  and  city  of  the  loyal  North  mingled  with 
the  last  sullen  echoes  that  died  away  from  our  cannon  over  the  Ceme 
tery  Ridge,  and  were  answered  by  glad  shouts  of  victory  from  the  far 
Southwest.  To  all  of  us  of  this  generation — -and  especially  to  such 
of  us  as  were  ourselves  part  of  those  great  events — this  celebration, 
therefore,  now  has  and  must  ever  retain  a  special  significance.  It 
belongs  to  us;  as  well  as  to  our  fathers.  As  upon  this  day  ninety- 
three  years  ago  this  nation  was  brought  into  existence  through  the 
efforts  of  others,  so,  upon  this  day  six  years  ago,  I  am  disposed  to  be 
lieve,  through  our  own  efforts,  it  dramatically  touched  the  climax 
of  its  great  argument. 

The  time  that  has  since  elapsed  enables  us  now  to  look  back  and  to 
see  things  in  their  true  proportions.  We  begin  to  realize  that  the 
years  we  have  so  recently  passed  through,  though  we  did  not  appreci 
ate  it  at  the  time,  were  the  heroic  years  of  American  history.  Now 
that  their  passionate  excitement  is  over,  it  is  pleasnt  to  dwell  upon  the, ;  i  . 
— to  recall  the  rising  of  a  great  people — the  call  to  arms  as  it  boomed  y* 
from  our  hill  tops  and  clashed  from  our  steeples — the  eager  patriotism 
of  that  fierce  April  which  kindled  new  sympathies  in  every  bosom, 
which  caused  the  miser  to  give  freely  of  his  wealth,  the  wife  with  eager 
hands  to  pack  the  knapsack  of  her  husband,  and  mothers,  with  eyes 
glistening  with  tears  of  pride,  to  look  out  upon  the  glistening  bayonets 
of  their  boys;  then  came  the  frenzy  of  impatience  and  the  defeat  en 
tailed  upon  us  by  rashness  and  inexperience,  before  our  nation 
settled  down,  solidly  and  patiently,  to  its  work,  determined  to  save 
itself  from  destruction;  and  then  followed  the  long  weary  years  of 
doubt  and  mingled  fear  and  hope,  until  at  last  that  day  came  six 
A.P.-22.  /7 

O 


664  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM, 

years  ago  which  we  now  celebrate — the  day  which  saw  the  flood-tide 
of  rebellion  reach  high-water  mark,  whence  it  never  after  ceased  to 
recede.  At  the  moment,  probably,  none  of  us,  either  at  home  or  at  the 
seat  of  war,  realized  the  grandeur  of  the  situation — the  dramatic 
power  of  the  incidents,  or  the  Titanic  nature  of  the  conflict.  To  you 
who  were  at  home — mothers,  fathers,  wives,  sisters,  brothers,  citizens 
of  the  common  country  if  nothing  else — the  agony  of  suspense,  the 
anxiety,  the  joy  and,  too  often,  the  grief  which  was  to  know  no  end, 
which  marked  the  passage  of  those  days,  left  little  either  of  time  or 
inclination  to  dwell  upon  aught  save  the  horrid  reality  of  the  drama. 
To  others,  who  more  immediately  participated  in  those  great  events, 
the  daily  vexations  and  annoyances — the  hot  and  dusty  day — the 
sleepless,  anxious  night — the  rain  upon  the  unsheltered  bivouac — the 
dead  lassitude  which  succeeded  the  excitement  of  action — the  cruel 
orders  which  recognized  no  fatigue  and  made  no  allowance  for  labors 
undergone — all  these  small  trials  of  the  soldier's  life  made  it  possible 
to  but  few  to  realize  the  grandeur  of  the  drama  in  which  they  were 
playing  a  part.  Yet  we  were  not  wholly  oblivious  of  it.  Now  and 
then  I  come  across  strange  evidences  of  this  in  turning  over  the  leaves  of 
the  few  weather-stained,  dog-eared  volumes  which  were  the  companions 
of  my  life  in  camp.  The  title  page  of  one  bears  witness  to  the  fact 
that  it  was  my  companion  at  Gettysburg,  and  in  it  I  recently  found 
some  lines  of  Browning's  noble  poem  of  Saul  marked  and  altered  to 
express  my  sense  of  our  sitiuation,  and  bearing  date  upon  this  very 
5th  of  July.  The  poet  had  described  in  them  the  fall  of  snow  in  the 
spring  time  from  a  mountain,  under  which  nestled  a  valley;  the  alter 
ing  of  a  few  words  made  them  well  describe  the  approach  of  our  army 
to  Gettysburg. 

"  Fold  on  fold,  all  at  once,  we  crowd  thundrously  down  to  your  feet, 
And  there  fronts  you,  stark,  black  but  alive  yet,  your  army  of  old 
With  its  rents,  the  successive  bequeathing  of  conflicts  untold, 
Yea! — each  harm  got  in  fighting  your  battles,  each  furrow  and  scar 
Of  its  head  thrust  twixt  you  and  the  tempest — all  hail!  here  we  are!" 

And  there  we  were,  indeed,  and  then  and  there  was  enacted  such  a 
celebration  as  I  hope  may  never  again  be  witnessed  there  or  elsewhere 
on  another  4th  of  July.  Even  as  I  stand  here  before  you,  through  the 
lapse  of  years  and  the  shifting  experiences  of  the  recent  past  visions 
and  memories  of  those  days  rise  thick  and  fast  before  me.  We  did  in 
deed  crowd  thundrously  down  to  their  feet  !  Of  the  events  of  those 
three  terrible  days  I  may  speak  with  feeling  and  yet  with  modesty,  for 
small  indeed  was  the  part  which  those  with  whom  I  served  were  called 
upon  to  play.  When  those  great  bodies  of  infantry  drove  together  ia 
the  crash  of  battle,  the  clouds  of  cavalry  which  had  hitherto  covered 
up  their  movements  were  swept  aside  to  the  flanks.  Our  work  for 
the  time  was  done,  nor  had  it  been  an  easy  or  a  plcasattt  work.  The 
road  to  Gettysburg  had  been  paved  with  our  bodies  and  watered  with 


CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS,  JR.  665 

our  blood.  Three  weeks  before,  in  the  middle  days  of  June,  I,  a  cap 
tain  of  cavalry,  had  taken  the  field  at  the  head  of  one  hundred  moimted" 
men,  the  joy  and  pride  of  my  life.  Through  twenty  days  of  almost 
incessant  conflict  the  hand  of  death  had  been  heavy  upon  us, and  now, 
upon  the  eve  of  Gettysburg,  thirty-four  of  the  hundred  only  remained, 
and  our  comrades  were  dead  on  the  field  of  battle,  or  languishing  in 
hospitals,  or  prisoners  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  Six  brave  young; 
fellows  we  had  buried  in  one  grave  where  they  fell  on  the  heights  of 
Aldie.  It  was  late  on  the  evening  of  the  first  of  July,  that  there  came 
to  us  rumors  of  heavy  fighting  at  Gettysburg,  near  forty  miles  away. 
The  regiment  happened  then  to  be  detached,  and  its  orders  for  the 
second  were  to  move  in  the  rear  of  Sedgwick's  corps  and  see  that  no 
man  left  the  column.  All  that  day  we  marched  to  the  sound  of  the 
cannon;  Sedgwick,  very  grim  and  stern,  was  pressing  forward  his  tired 
men,  and  we  soon  saw  that  for  once  there  would  be  no  stragglers  from 
the  ranks.  As  the  day  grew  old  and  as  we  passed  rapidly  up  from  the 
rear  to  the  head  of  the  hurrying  column,  the  roar  of  battle  grew  more 
distinct,  until  at  last  we  crowned  a  hill,  and  the  contest  broke  upon  us. 
Across  the  deep  valley,  some  two  miles  away,  we  could  see  the  white 
smoke  of  the  bursting  shells,  while  below  the  sharp  incessant  rattle 
of  the  musketry  told  of  the  fierce  struggle  that  was  going  on.  Before 
us  ran  the  straight,  white,  dusty  road,  choked  with  artillery,  ambu 
lances,  caissons,  ammunition  trains,  all  pressing  forward  to  the  field 
of  battle,  while  mixed  among  them,  their  bayonets  gleaming  through 
the  dust  like  wavelets  on  a  river  of  steel,  tired,  foot-sore,  hungry, 
thirsty,  begrimed  with  sweat  and  dust,  the  gallant  infantry  of  Sedg 
wick's  corps  hurried  to  the  sound  of  the  cannon  as  men  might  have 
flocked  to  a  feast.  Moving  rapidly  forward,  we  crossed  the  brook 
which  runs  so  prominently  across  the  map  of  the  field  of  battle  and 
halted  on  its  further  side  to  await  our  orders.  Hardly  had  I  dis 
mounted  from  my  horse  when,  looking  back,  I  saw  that  the  head  of 
the  column  had  reached  the  brook,  and  deployed  and  halted  on  its 
other  bank,  and  already  the  stream  was  filled  with  naked  men  shout 
ing  with  pleasure  as  they  washed  off  the  sweat  of  their  long  day's 
march.  Even  as  I  looked,  the  noise  of  the  battle  grew  louder,  and 
soon  the  symptoms  of  movement  were  evident.  The  rappelvtzs  heard, 
the  bathers  hurriedly  clad  themselves,  the  ranks  were  formed,  and  the 
sharp,  quick  snap  of  the  percussion  caps  told  us  the  men  were  prepar 
ing  their  weapons  for  action.  Almost  immediately  a  general  officer 
rode  rapidly  to  the  front  of  the  line,  addressed  to  it  a  few  brief  ener 
getic  words,  the  short  sharp  order  to  move  by  the  flank  was  given, 
followed  immediately  by  the  "  double  quick,"  the  officer  placed  him 
self  at  the  head  of  the  column,  and  that  brave  infantry  which  had 
marched  almost  forty  miles  since  the  setting  of  yesterday's  sun, — 
which  during  that  day  had  hardly  known  either  sleep,  or  food,  or  rest, 
or  shelter  from  the  July  heat, — now,  as  the  shadows  grew  long,  hur- 


666  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

ried  forward  on  the  run  to  take  its  place  in  the  front  of  battle  and  to 
bear  up  the  reeling  fortunes  of  the  day. 

It  is  said  that  at  the  crisis  of  Solferino,  Marshal  McMahon  appeared 
with  his  corps  upon  the  field  of  battle,  his  hien  having  run  for  seven 
miles.  We  need  not  go  abroad  for  examples  of  endurance  and  soldierly 
bearing.  The  achievement  of  Sedgwick  and  the  brave  Sixth  Corps, 
as  they  marched  upon  the  field  of  Gettysburg  on  that  second  day  of 
July,  far  excels  the  vaunted  efforts  of  the  French  Zouaves. 

Twenty-four  hours  later  we  stood  on  that  same  ground, — many 
dear  friends  had  yielded  up  their  young  lives  during  the  hours  which 
had  elapsed,  but,  though  twenty  thousand  fellow  creatures  were 
wounded  or  dead  around  us,  though  the  flood  gates  of  heaven  seemed 
open  and  the  torrents  fell  upon  the  quick  and  the  dead,  yet  the  elements 
seemed  electrified  with  a  certain  magnetic  influence  of  victory,  and,  as 
the  great  army  sank  down  overwearied  in  its  tracks,  it  felt  that  the 
crisis  and  danger  was  passed, — that  Gettysburg  was  immortal. 

May  I  not  then  well  express  the  hope  that  never  again  may  we  or 
ours  be  called  upon  so  to  celebrate  this  anniversary?  And  yet  now 
that  the  passionate  hopes  and  fears  of  those  days  are  all  over, — now 
that  the  grief  which  can  never  be  forgotten  is  softened  and  m'odified 
by  the  soothing  hand  of  time, — now  that  the  distracting  doubts  and 
untold  anxieties  are  buried  and  almost  forgotten,  we  love  to  remem 
ber  the  gathering  of  the  hosts, — to  hear  again  in  memory  the  shock  of 
battle,  and  to  wonder  at  the  magnificence  of  the  drama.  The  passion 
and  the  excitement  is  gone  and  we  can  look  at  the  work  we  have  done 
and  pronounce  upon  it.  I  do  not  fear  the  sober  second  judgment. 
Our  work  was  a  good  work, — it  was  well  done,  and  it  was  done  thor 
oughly.  Some  one  has  said — "  Happy  is  the  people  which  has  no  his 
tory."  Not  so  ! — As  it  is  better  to  have  loved  and  lost  than  never  to 
have  loved  at  all,  so  it  is  better  to  have  lived  greatly,  even  though  we 
have  suffered  greatly,  than  to  have  passed  a  long  life  of  inglorious 
ease.  Our  generation, — yes  !  we  ourselves  have  been  a  part  of  great 
things.  We  have  suffered  greatly  and  greatly  rejoiced; — we  have  drunk 
deep  of  the  cup  of  joy  and  of  sorrow; — we  have  tasted  the  agony  of 
defeat  and  we  have  supped  full  with  the  pleasures  of  victory.  We  have 
proved  ourselves  equal  to  great  deeds,  and  have  learnt  what  qualities 
were  in  us,  which,  in  more  peaceful  times,  we  ourselves  did  not 
suspect. 

And,  indeed,  I  would  here  in  closing  fain  address  a  few  words  to 
such  of  you,  if  any  such  are  here,  who  like  myself  may  have  been  sol 
diers  during  the  war  of  the  Rebellion.  We  should  never  more  be  par- 
tizans.  We  have  been  a  part  of  great  events  in  the  service  of  the  com 
mon  country,  we  have  worn  her  uniform,  we  have  received  her  pay, 
and  devoted  ourselves,  to  the  death  if  need  be,  in  her  service.  When 
we  were  blackened  by  the  smoke  of  Antietam,  we  did  not  ask  or  care 


CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS,  JR.  667 

whether  those  who  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  beside  us, — whether  he 
who  led  us, — whether  those  who  sustained  us,  were  Democrats  or 
Republicans,  conservatives  or  radicals;  we  asked  only  that  they  might 
prove  as  true  as  was  the  steel  we  grasped,  and  as  brave  as  we  our 
selves  would  fain  have  been.  When  we  stood  like  a  wall  of  stone 
vomiting  fire  from  the  heights  of  Gettsburg, — nailed  to  our  position 
through  three  long  days  of  mortal  Hell, — did  we  ask  each  other  wheth 
er  that  brave  officer  who  fell  while  gallantly  leading  the  counter-charge  ,  : 
— whether  that  cool  gunner  steadily  serving  his  piece  before  us  midst  * 
the  storm  of  shot  and  shell, — whether  the  poor  wounded,  mangled, 
gasping  comrades,  crushed  and  torn,  and  dying  in  agony  around  us, 
had  voted  for  Lincoln  or  Douglas,  for  Breckenridge  or  Bell  ?  We  then 
•were  full  of  other  thoughts.  We  prized  men  for  what  they  were  Avorth 
to  the  common  country  of  us  all,  and  recked  not  of  empty  words.  Was 
the  man  true,  was  he  brave,  was  he  earnest, — was  all  we  thought  of 
then, — not,  did  he  vote  or  think  with  us,  or  label  himself  with  our 
party  name.  This  lessen  let  us  try  to  remember.  We  cannot  give  to 
party  all  that  we  once  offered  to  country,  but  our  duty  is  not  yet  done. 
We  are  no  longer,  what  we  have  been,  the  young  guard  of  the  Repub 
lic; — we  have  earned  an  exemption  from  the  dangers  of  the  field  and 
camp,  and  the  old  musket  or  the  crossed  sabres  hang  harmless  over 
our  winter  fires,  never  more  to  be  grasped  in  these  hands  henceforth 
devoted  to  more  peaceful  labors;  but  the  duties  of  the  citizen,  and  of 
the  citizen  who  has  received  his  baptism  in  fire,  are  still  incumbent 
upon  us.  Though  young  in  years,  we  should  remember  that  hence 
forth,  and  as  long  as  we  live  in  the  land  we  are  the  ancients, — the  vet 
erans  of  the  Republic.  As  such,  it  is  for  us  to  protect  in  peace  what 
we  preserved  in  war, — it  is  for  us  to  look  at  all  things  with  a  view  to 
the  common  country  and  not  to  the  exigencies  of  party  politics, — it  is 
for  us  ever  to  bear  in  mind  the  higher  allegiance  we  have  sworn,  and 
to  remember  that  he  who  has  once  been  a  soldier  of  the  mother-land 
degrades  himself  forever  when  he  becomes  the  slave  of  faction.  Then 
at  last,  if  through  life  we  ever  bear  these  lessons  freshly  in  mind,  will 
it  be  well  for  us, — will  it  be  well  for  our  country, — will  it  be  well  for  . 
those  whose  names  we  bear,  that  our  bones  also  do  not  moulder  with  • 
those  of  our  brave  comrades  beneath  the  sods  of  Gettysburg,  or  that 
our  graves  do  not  look  down  on  the  swift  flowing  Mississippi  from  the 
historic  heights  of  Vicksburg, 


668  AMERICAN 


CENTENNIAL  ORATION. 
ROBERT   CHARLES  WINTHROP. 

Boston,  July  4,  1876. 

Our  fathers  were  no  propagandists  of  republican  institutions  in  the 
^abstract.  Their  own  adoption  of  a  republican  form  was,  at  the  mo- 
^ff!ent7"almost  as  much  a  matter  of  chance  as  of  choice,  of  necessity  as 
of  preference.  The  thirteen  colonies  had,  happily,  been  too  long  ac 
customed  to  manage  their  own  affairs,  and  were  too  widely  jealous  of 
each  other,  also,  to  admit  for  an  instant  any  idea  of  centralization; 
and  without  centralization  a  monarchy,  or  any  other  form  of  arbitrary 
government,  was  out  of  the  question.  Union  wa5  then,  as  it  is  now, 
the  only  safety  for  liberty;  but  it  could  only  be  a  constitutional  union, 
a  limited  and  restricted  union,  founded  on  compromises  and  mutual 
concessions;  a  union  recognizing  a  large  measure  of  state  rights  — 
resting  not  only  on  the  division  of  powers  among  legislative  and  ex 
ecutive  departments  but  resting  also  on  the  distribution  of  powers  be 
tween  the  states  and  the  nation,  both  deriving  their  original  authority 
from  the  people,  and  exercising  that  authority  for  the  people.  This 
was  the  system  contemplated  by  the  declaration  of  1776.  This  was 
the  system  approximated  to  by  the  confederation  of  1778-81.  This 
was  the  system  finally  consummated  by  the  constitution  of  1789.  And 
under  this  system  our  great  example  of  self-government  has  been  held 
up  before  the  nations,  fulfilling,  so  far  as  it  has  fulfilled  it,  that  lofty 
mission  which  is  recognized  to-day,  as  "liberty  enlightening  the 
world." 

Let  me  not  speak  of  that  example  in  any  vain-glorious  spirit.  Let 
me  not  seem  to  arrogate  for  my  country  anything  of  superior  wisdom 
or  virtue.  Who  will  pretend  that  we  have  always  made  the  most  of 
our  independence,  or  the  best  of  our  liberty?  Who  will  maintain  that 
we  have  always  exhibited  the  brightest  side  of  our  institutions,  or 
always  entrusted  their  administration  to  the  wisest  or  worthiest  men  ? 
Who  will  deny  that  we  have  sometimes  taught  the  world  what  to 
avoid,  as  well  as  what  to  imitate;  and  that  the  cause  of  freedom  and 
reform  has  sometimes  been  discouraged  and  put  back  by  our  short- 
•  comings,  or  by  our  excesses?  Our  light  has  been,  at  best,  but  a  re- 
'.volving  light;  warning  by  its  darker  intervals  or  its  sombre  shades, 
as  well  as  cheering  by  its  flashes  of  brilliancy,  or  by  the  clear  lustre  of 
its  steadier  shining.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  its  imperfections  and  irregu 
larities,  to  no  other  earthly  light  have  so  many  eyes  been  turned; 
from  no  other  earthly  illumination  have  so  many  hearts  drawn  hope 
and  courage.  It  has  breasted  the  tides  of  sectional  and  of  party  strife. 
It  has  stood  the  shock  of  foreign  and  of  civil  war.  It  will  still  hold 
on,  erect  and  unextinguished,  defying,  "the  returning  wave"  of  de- 


ROBERT  CHARLES  WIN  THRO  P.        669 

moralization  and  corruption.  Millions  of  young  hearts,  in  all  quar 
ters  of  our  land,  are  awakening  at  this  moment  to  the  responsibility 
which  rests  peculiarly  upon  them,  for  rendering  its  radiance  purer 
and  brighter  and  more  constant.  Millions  of  young  hearts  are  resolv 
ing,  at  this  hour,  that  it  shall  not  be  their  fault  if  it  do  not  stand  for  a 
century  to  come,  as  it  has  stood  for  a  century  past,  a  beacon  of  lib 
erty  to  mankind  !  Their  little  flags  of  hope  and  promise  are  floating 
to-day  from  every  cottage  window  along  the  road  side.  With  those 
young  hearts  it  is  safe. 

Meantime,  we  may  all  rejoice  and  take  courage,  as  we  remember  of 
liow  great  a  drawback  and  obstruction  our  example  has  been  disem 
barrassed  and  relieved  within  a  few  years  past.  Certainly,  we  cannot 
forget  this  day,  in  looking  back  over  the  century  which  is  gone,  how 
long  that  example  was  overshadowed,  in  the  eyes  of  our  men,  by  the 
existence  of  African  slavery  in  so  considerable  a  portion  of  our  coun 
try.  Never,  never,  however — it  may  be  safely  said — was  there  a  more 
Tremendous,  a  more  dreadful,  problem  submitted  to  a  nation  for  solu 
tion,  than  that  which  this  institution  involved  for  the  United  States  of 
America.  Nor  were  we  alone  responsible  for  its  existence.  I  do  not 
speak  of  it  in  the  way  of  apology  for  ourselves.  Still  less  would  I 
refer  to  it  in  the  way  of  crimination  or  reproach  towards  others, 
abroad  or  at  home.  But  the  well-known  paragraph  on  this  subject,  in 
the  original  draught  of  the  declaration,  is  quite  too  notable  a  reminis 
cence  of  the  little  desk  *  before  me,  to  be  forgotten  on  such  an  occa 
sion  as  this.  That  omitted  clause — which,  as  Mr.  Jefferson  tells  us, 
"was  struck  out  in  compliance  to  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,"  not 
without  "tenderness,"  too,  as  he  adds,  to  some  "northern  brethren, 
\vho,  though  they  had  very  few  slaves  themselves,  had  been  pretty 
considerable  carriers  of  them  to  others," — contained  the  direct  allega 
tion  that  the  king  had  "prostituted  his  negative  for  suppressing  every 
legislative  attempt  to  prohibit  or  restrain  this  execrable  commerce." 
That  memorable  clause,  omitted  for  prudential  reasons  only,  has 
passed  into  history,  and  its  truth  can  never  be  disputed.  It  recalls  to 
us,  and  recalls  to  the  world,  the  historical  fact — which  we  certainly 
have  a  special  right  to  remember  this  day — that  not  only  had  African 
slavery  found  its  portentous  and  pernicious  way  into  our  colonies  in 
their  very  earliest  settlement,  but  that  it  had  been  fixed  and  fastened 
upon  some  of  them  by  royal  vetoes,  prohibiting  the  passage  of  laws 
to  restrain  its  further  introduction.  It  had  thus  not  only  entwined 
and  entangled  itself  about  the  very  roots  of  our  choicest  harvests— 
until  slavery  and  cotton  at  last  seemed  as  inseparable  as  the  tares  and 
wheat  of  the  sacred  parable — but  it  had  engrafted  itself  upon  the  very 
fabric  of  our  government.  We  all  know,  the  world  knows,  that  our 
independence  could  not  have  been  achieved,  our  Union  could  not 

*  The  desk  on  which  Thomas  Jefferson  -,vrotc  the  Declaration.  <  f  Independence. 


6  7  o  A  ME  RICA  N  2  'A  TRIO  TISM. 

have  been  maintained,  our  constitution  could  not  have  been  estab 
lished,  without  the  adoption  of  those  compromises  which  recognized 
its  continued  existence,  and  left  it  to  the  responsibility  of  the  states  of 
which  it  was  the  grievous  inheritance.  And  from  that  day  forward, 
the  method  of  dealing  with  it,  of  disposing  of  it,"  and  of  extinguishing 
it,  became  more  and  more  a  problem  full  of  terrible  perplexity,  and 
seemingly  incapable  of  human  solution. 

Oh,  that  it  could  have  been  solved  at  last  by  some  process  less  de 
plorable  and  dreadful  than  civil  war  !  How  unspeakably  glorious  it 
would  have  been  for  us  this  day,  could  the  great  emancipation  have 
been  concerted,  arranged,  and  ultimately  effected,  without  violence  or 
bloodshed,  as  a  simple  and  sublime  act  of  philanthropy  and  justice  ! 

But  it  was  not  in  the  divine  economy  that  so  huge  an  original  wrong 
should  be  righted  by  an  easy  process.  The  decree  seemed  to  have 
gone  forth  from  the  very  registries  of  heaven: 

"  Cuncta  prius  tentanda,  sed  immedicabile  vulnus 
Ense  recidendum  est." 

The  immedicable  wound  must  be  cut  away  by  the  sword  !  Again 
and  again  as  that  terrible  war  went  on,  we  might  almost  hear  voices 
crying  out,  in  the  words  of  the  old  prophet:  "Othou  sword  of  the 
Lord,  how  long  will  it  be  ere  thou  be  quiet  ?  Put  up  thyself  into  thy 
scabbard;  rest,  and  be  still."  But  the  answering  voice  seemed  no't 
less  audible:  "  How  can  it  be  quiet,  seeing  the  Lord  hath  given  it  a 
charge  ?" 

And  the  war  went  on — bravely  fought  on  both  sides,  as  we  all 
know — until,  as  one  of  its  necessities,  slavery  was  abolished.  It  fell 
at  last  under  that  right  of  war  to  abolish  it,  which  the  late  John 
Quincy  Adams  had  been  the  first  to  announce  in  the  way  of  warning, 
more  than  twenty  years  before,  in  my  own  hearing,  on  the  floor  of 
Congress,  while  I  was  your  representative.  I  remember  well  the 
burst  of  indignation  and  derision  with  which  that  warning  was  re 
ceived.  No  prediction  of  Cassandra  was  ever  more  scorned  than  his, 
and  he  did  not  live  to  witness  its  verification.  But  whoever  else  may 
have  been  more  immediately  and  personally  instrumental  in  the  final 
result — the  brave  soldiers  who  fought  the  battles,  or  the  gallant  gen 
erals  who  led  them — the  devoted  philanthropists,  or  the  ardent  states 
men,  who,  in  season  and  out  of  season,  labored  for  it — the  martyr- 
president  who  proclaimed  it — the  true  story  of  Emancipation  can 
never  be  fairly  and  fully  told  without  the  "old  man  eloquent,"  who 
died  beneath  the  roof  of  the  Capitol  nearly  thirty  years  ago,  being 
recognized  as  one  of  the  leading  figures  of  the  narrative. 

But,  thanks  be  to  God,  who  overrules  everything  for  good,  that 
great  event,  the  grandest  of  our  American  age — great  enough,  alone 
and  by  itself  to  give  a  name  and  a  character  to  any  age — has  been  ac 
complished,  and,  by  His  blessing,  we  present  our  country  to  the 


ROBERT  CHARLES    WIN  THRO  P.  671 

world  this  day  without  a  slave,  white  or  black,  upon  its  soil !  Thanks 
be  to  God,  not  only  that  our  beloved  Union  has  been  saved,  but  that 
it  has  been  made  both  easier  to  save,  and  better  worth  saving,  here 
after,  by  the  final  solution  of  a  problem,  before  which  all  human  wis 
dom  had  stood  aghast  and  confounded  for  so  many  generations. 
Thanks  be  to  God,  and  to  him  be  all  the  praise  and  the  glory,  we 
can  read  the  great  words  of  the  Declaration,  on  this  centennial  anni 
versary,  without  reservation  or  evasion:  "  We  hold  these  truths  to  be 
self-evident,  that  all  men  are  created  equal,  and  that  they  are  endowed 
by  their  Creator  with  certain  unalienable  rights;  that  among  these  are 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  The  legend  on  that  new 
colossal  pharos,  at  Long  Island,  may  now  indeed  be,  "  Liberty  en 
lightening  the  world  !" 

We  come,  then,  to-day,  fellow-citizens,  with  hearts  full  of  gratitude 
to  God  and  man,  to  pass  down  our  country,  and  its  institutions — not 
only  wholly  without  scars  and  blemishes  upon  their  front — not  with 
out  shadows  on  the  past  or  clouds  on  the  future — but  freed  forever 
from  at  least  one  great  stain,  and  firmly  rooted  in  the  love  and  loyalty 
of  a  united  people — to  the  generations  which  are  to  succeed  us. 

And  what  shall  we  say  to  those  succeeding  generations,  as  we  com 
mit  the  sacred  trust  to  their  keeping  and  guardianship  ? 

If  I  could  hope,  without  presumption,  that  any  humble  counsels  of 
mind,  on  this  hallowed  anniversary,  could  be  remembered  beyond  the 
hour  of  their  utterance,  and  reach  the  ears  of  my  countrymen  in  future 
days;  if  I  could  borrow  "  the  masterly  pen"  of  Jefferson,  and  produce 
words  which  should  partake  of  the  immortality  of  those  which  he 
wrote  on  this  little  desk;  if  I  could  command  the  matchless  tongue  of 
John  Adams,  when  he  poured  out  appeals  and  arguments  which 
moved  men  from  their  seats,  and  settled  the  destinies  of  a  nation;  if 
I  could  catch  but  a  single  spark  of  those  electric  fires  which  Franklin 
wrestled  from  the  skies,  and  flash  down  a  phrase,  a  word,  a  thought, 
along  the  magic  chords  which  stretch  across  the  ocean  of  the  future — 
what  could  I,  what  would  I,  say? 

I  could  not  omit,  certainly,  to  reiterate  the  solemn  obligations  which 
rest  on  every  citizen  of  this  Republic  to  cherish  and  enforce  the  great 
principles  of  our  Colonial  and  Revolutionary  Fathers, — the  principles 
of  liberty  and  law,  one  and  inseparable — the  principles  of  the  Consti 
tution  and  the  Union. 

I  could  not  omit  to  urge  on  every  man  to  remember  that  self-gov 
ernment  politically  can  be  successful,  only  if  it  be  accompanied  by 
self-government  personally;  that  there  must  be  government  some 
where;  and  that,  if  the  people  are  indeed  to  be  sovereigns,  they  must 
exercise  their  sovereignty  over  themselves  individually,  as  well  as  over 
themselves  in  the  aggregate — regulating  their  own  lives,  resisting  their 
own  temptations,  subduing  their  own  passions,  and  voluntarily  im- 


672  AMr.RlL'AX  PATRIOTISM. 


posing  upon  themselves  some  measure  of  that  restraint  and  discipline 
which,  under  other  systems,  is  supplied  from  the  armories  of  arbitrary 
power  —  the  discipline  of  virtue,  in  the  place  of  the  discipline  of  slavery. 

I  could  not  omit  to  caution  them  against  the  corrupting  influences  of 
intemperance,  extravagance,  and  luxury.  I  could  not  omit  ro  warn 
them  against  political  intrigue,  as  well  as  against  personal  licentious 
ness  ;  and  to  implore  them  to  regard  principle  and  character,  rather 
than  mere  party  allegiance,  in  the  choice  of  men  to  rule  over  them. 

I  could  not  omit  to  call  upon  them  to  foster  and  further  the  cause  of 
universal  education;  to  give  a  liberal  support  to  our  schools  and  col 
leges;  to  promote  the  advancement  of  science  and  of  art,  in  all  their 
multiplied  divisions  and  relations;  and  to  encourage  and  sustain  all 
those  noble  institutions  of  charity,  which,  in  our  own  land  above  all 
others,  have  given  the  crowning  grace  and  glory  to  modern  civiliza 
tion. 

I  could  not  refrain  from  pressing  upon  them  a  just  and  generous 
consideration  for  the  interests  and  the  rights  of  their  fellow-men  eveiy- 
where,  and  an  earnest  effort  to  promote  peace  and  good-will  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth. 

I  could  not  refrain  from  reminding  them  of  the  shame,  the  unspeak 
able  shame  and  ignominy,  which  would  attach  to  those  who  should 
show  themselves  unable  to  uphold  the  glorious  fabric  of  self-govern 
ment  which  had  been  formed  for  them  at  such  a  cost  by  their  fathers: 
"  Videte,  vidcte,  ne,  ut  Hits  pulcherrium  fuit  tan  tarn  volns  imperii 
gloria  m  relinquere,  sic  vobis  turpissimum  sit,  illnd  quod  accefislis,  inert 
et  conservare  non  posse  /" 

And  surely,  most  surely,  I  could  not  fail  to  invoke  them  to  imitate 
and  emulate  the  example  of  virtue  and  purity  and  patriotism,  which 
the  great  founders  of  our  colonies  and  of  our  nations  had  so  abundant 
ly  left  them. 

But  could  I  stop  there  ?  Could  I  hold  out  to  them,  as  the  results  of  a 
long  life  of  observation  and  experience,  nothing  but  the  principles  and 
examples  of  great  men  ? 

Who  and  what  are  great  men?  "  Woe  to  the  country,"  said  Met- 
ternich  to  our  own  Ticknor,  forty  years  ago,  "whose  condition  and 
institutions  no  longer  produce  great  men  to  manage  its  affairs."  The 
wily  Austrian  applied  his  remark  to  England  at  that  day;  but  his  woe 
—  if  it  be  a  woe  —  would  have  a  wider  range  in  our  time,  and  leave 
hardly  any  land  unreached.  Certainly  we  hear  it  now-a-days,  at  every 
turn,  that  never  before  has  there  been  so  striking  a  disproportion  be 
tween  supply  and  demand,  as  at  this  moment,  the  world  over,  in  the 
,  commodity  of  great  men. 

But  who,  and  what,  are  great  men?     "And  now  stand   forth,"  says 

'     an  eminent  Swiss   historian,  who  had  completed  a  survey  of  the  whole 

history  of  mankind,  at  the  very  moment  when,  as  he  says,  "a  blaze 

of  freedom  is  just  bursting  forth  beyond  the  ocean,  "•*  —  "And  now  stand 


ROBERT  CHARLES  WINTUROP.        673 

forth,  ye  gigantic  forms,  shades  of  the  first  chicfrains,  and  sons  of 
God,  who  glimmer  among  the  rocky  halls  and  mountain  fortresses  of 
the  ancient  world;  and  you  conquerors  of  the  world  from  Babylon  and  j 
from  Macedonia;  ye  dynasties  of  Csesars,  of  Huns,  Arabs,  Moguls  | 
and  Tartars;  ye  commanders  of  the  faithful  on  the  Tigris,  and  com-  { 
raanders  of  the  faithful  on  the  Tiber;  you  hoary  counsellors  of  kings, 
and  peers  of  sovereigns;  warriors  on  the  car  of  triumph,  covered  with 
scars,  and  crowned  with  laurels;  ye  long  rows  of  consuls  and  dictators, 
famed  for  your  lofty  minds,  your  unshaken  constancy,  your  ungovern 
able  spirit; — stand  forth,  and  let  us  survey  for  a  while  your  assembly, 
like  a  Council  of  the  Gods  !  what  were  ye  ?  The  first  among  mortals  ? 
Seldom  can  you  claim  that  title  !  The  best  of  men  ?  Still  fewer  of 
you  have  deserved  such  praise!  Were  ye  the  compellers,  the  instigators 
of  the  human  race,  the  prime  movers  of  all  their  works  ?  Rather  let  us 
say  that  you  were  the  instruments,  that  you  were  the  wheels,  by  whose 
means  the  Invisible  Being  has  conducted  the  incomprehensible  fabric 
of  universal  government  across  the  ocean  of  time  !" 

Instruments  and  wheels  of  the  Invisible  Governor  of  the  universe! 
This  is  indeed  all  which  the  greatest  men  ever  have  been,  or  ever  can 
be.  No  flatteries  of  courtiers,  no  adulations  of  the  multitude,  no  au 
dacity  of  self-reliance,  no  intoxications  of  success,  no  evolutions  or 
developments  of  science,  can  make  more  or  other  of  them.  This  is 
"  the  sea-mark  of  their  utmost  sail,"  the  goal  of  their  farthest  run,  the 
very  round  and  top  of  their  highest  soaring. 

Oh,  if  there  could  be,  to-day,  a  deeper  and  more  pervading  impres 
sion  of  this  great  truth  throughout  our  land,  and  a  more  prevailing 
conformity  of  our  thoughts  and  words  and  acts  to  the  lessons  which  it 
involves — if  we  could  lift  ourselves  to  a  loftier  sense  of  our  relations 
to  the  invisible — if  in  surveying  our  past  history,  we  could  catch  lar 
ger  and  more  exalted  views  of  our  destinies  and  our  responsibilities — 
if  we  could  realize  that  the  want  of  good  men  may  be  a  heavier^  woe  to 
a  land  than  any  want  of  what  the  world  calls  great  men — our  centen 
nial  year  would  not  only  be  signalized  by  splendid  ceremonials  and 
magnificent  commemorations  and  gorgeous  expositions,  but  it  would 
go  far  towards  fulfilling  something  of  the  grandeur  of  that  "  acceptable 
year  "  which  was  announced  by  higher  than  human  lips,  and  would  be 
the  auspicious  promise  and  pledge  of  a  glorious  second  century  of 
independence  and  freedom  for  our  country  ! 

For,  if  that  second  century  of  self-government  is  to  go  on  safely  to 
its  close,  or  is  to  go  on  safely  and  prosperously  at  all,  there  must  be 
some  renewal  of  that  old  spirit  of  subordination  and  obedience  to  di 
vine,  as  well  as  human,  laws,  which  has  been  our  security  in  the  past. 
There  must  be  faith  in  something  higher  and  better  than  ourselves. 
There  must  be  a  reverent  acknowledgment  of  an  unseen,  but  all-seeing, 
all-controlling  Ruler  of  the  universe.  His  word,  His  day,  His  house, 
His  worship,  must  be  sacred  to  our  children,  as  they  have  been  to 


674  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 

their  fathers;  and  His  blessing  must  never  fail  to  be  invoked  upon  our 
land  and  upon  our  liberties.  The  patriot  voice,  which  cried  from  the 
balcony  of  yonder  old  State  House,  when  the  Declaration  had  been 
originally  proclaimed  "stability  and  perpetuity  to  American  indepen 
dence,"  did  not  fail  to  add  "God  save  our  American  states."  I  would 
prolong  that  ancestral  prayer.  And  the  last  phrase  to  pass  my  lips  at 
this  hour,  and  to  take  its  chance  for  remembrance  or  oblivion  in  years 
to  come,  as  the  conclusion  of  this  centennial  oration,  and  as  the  sum 
and  summing  up,  of  all  I  can  say  to  the  present  or  the  future,  shall  be: 
— there  is,  there  can  be,  no  independence  of  God:  in  Him,  as  a  nation, 
no  less  than  in  Him,  as  individuals,  "  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being  !  GOD  SAVE  OUR  AMERICAN  STATES  ! 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

'  iect  to  immediate  recall. 


2  5  1998 


RECEIVF 

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U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


COOS2t,13SO 


773197 

•v 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


